80 | GOODWOOD REVIVAL SALE
Between 1970 and 1971 Dino production virtually doubled. The
open-cockpit Dino 246 GTS joined the range at the 1972 Geneva
Salon de l’Automobile exhibition, with its central roof panel
removable to leave windscreen and rear-cockpit arch or roll-over
section in place.
The French magazine ‘Virage’ published a comparison test between
the Dino 246 GT and the contemporary 2.2-litre Porsche 911S in
March 1970. The Ferrari Dino bettered its German counterpart on
top speed, acceleration and – perhaps most favourably of all – in
terms of “driving pleasure”. Porsche subsequently reacted to this
Italian threat by enlarging their 911 engine to 2.4-litres, which
turned some of the tables, and which led Ferrari to introduce the
very much more revamped 3-litre Dino 308 GT which replaced the
246 GT/GTS series in 1974. At that point some 3,661 Dino 246s
had been produced – 2,485 of them being the better looking fixed-
head Coupés such as this example offered here, and the balance of
them being the 1,274 detachable-roof Spiders.
This particular car offered here – chassis number ‘00696’ – was
completed by the factory on March 6, 1970 and its Certificato
d’Origine was then issued on March 27 that year. It was delivered
new to official dealer M. Gastone Crepaldi Sas of the Via San
marco in Milan that same month, and sold immediately to local
resident Signora Amelia Lia Crippa. It was registered in the name of
Signora Giulia Macchi (born 1890 and probably either the mother
or grandmother of Signora Amelia). Its registration plates read ‘MI
K 60418’.On June 27, 1973, this Dino 246 GT was sold to the second owner,
Mario Grandi, of Bologna for the declared price of Lire 4,400,000.
On August 31 that year the car was re-registered in Bologna as
‘BO 555583’. When its oil was changed on November 21, 1974, its
odometer reading was noted as being 11,415kms.