DALLARA FIRST ROAD CAR

Production has begun at Dallara for the company's first road car to bear ths company name. Giampaolo Dallara turned 81 last November but he remains hard at work. Last autumn he announced the project, with the goal being to create a car that would mirror the racing cars for which he is famous: simple, light, stiff and fast. Work on the Dallara Stradale began back in 2015 and what emerged was essentially a track car built around a carbon composite monocoque, as one would expect.

There are no doors, although they can be added along with a rear spoiler or a roof. The chassis is mated to a 2.3-litre turbo Ford EcoBoost, as used in the Focus RS. Despite the engine, the car weighs in at only 855kg although extra weight builds up quickly if one chooses the options.

The gearbox is manual but a paddle-shift option is in the works, while steering is unassisted and stability control, traction control and ABS are standard. The car is expensive at $190,000, but the plan is to build around 600 of them in the course of the next six years. 

Styled by Belgian Lowie Vermeersch of GranStudio in Turin, a former design director at Pininfarina, the car was developed by Loris Bicocchi, Bugatti's test driver. Dallara has been involved in low volume road car programmes in the past, notably with the Bugatti Veyron, the Maserati MC12 and the KTM X-Bow. The firm was also involved with Alfa Romeo for the 4C and the 8C. It is now building racing sports cars, although it is best known for its single seaters.

Originally a Ferrari engineer (back in 1959) Dallara moved on to work with Maserati and Lamborghini, notably on the Miura. He then designed the De Tomaso F1 car before setting up his own business in 1972. His initial racing success came in the early 1980s in Formula 3 but success followed success and company now supplies a vast range of racing cars around the world, most of them to one-make racing series, including IndyCar and Formula E, while he is also busy with an F1 partnership with Haas.