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275th car suggestion
StarLight Garage presents the iconic Fiat X1/9 Dallara from 1975. A car originally designed by Bertone and manufactured by Fiat. Dallara built later a race version of it, the Dallara Icsunonove (the Italian pronunciation of X1/9, ics uno/nove).
Idea for this thread provided by CostasDrifter.
Back in 1973, when the first production 1300cc X1/9s were emerging out of Italy, but years before they were officially imported to the UK, Giampolo Dallara agreed with FIAT to develop a racing version of the X1/9. Dallara became the first to produce a series of racing exxies at their Parma factory.
Dallara have recently been in the forefront of Formula 3 racing around the world with their latest chassis/ monocoque designs – and their successful projects litter the thirty years in between. Yet this X1/9 commission remains a firm favourite project with Giampolo.
The lines and purposeful stance are as striking today as ever. The car’s handling and cornering abilities are legendary. They are pretty and functional yet enhance the Bertone original’s elegance. Actually Bertone designed the body panels for the Dallara too.
In 1975 the X1/9 was chosen by Dallara to enter the World Championship for Makes (in the Group 5 Special Production class). The Dallara Icsunonove featured a modified X1/9 engine with a custom 16v cylinder-head and fundamental suspension and body/monocoque alterations, the most obvious of which are the massively flared wheel-arches and the over-sized rear wing.
A lot of drag in the X1/9 comes off the rear window area. The Dallara rear wing was fixed at the roof line and is intended to ‘clean up’ the air coming off the back window and rear of the car… and not to generate huge down force. Dallara personnel have suggested it was their best guess at the time rather than as the result of lots of wind tunnel testing.
The Dallara X1/9 retained the original passenger compartment, with front and rear space frames extended from the bulkheads to mount engine/box and suspension components.
The initial Dallaras were built to Group 5 racing regulations.
Almost every part of the car was redesigned with one goal: to outperform the opposition. Heart of the project was the 4 valve/cylinder fuel injected engine that in the 1300 cc version produced an astonishing 192bhp@9700rpm, while the 1600 cc had ~210bhp@~1000rpm less.
This was a silhouette formula allowing for maximum mechanical and weight reduction mods. – yet keeping the car’s production body outline.
Few production components remained. To reduce weight, suspension uprights were cast from magnesium alloy, lower suspension arms were specially fabricated including lightweight radius arms.
The fuel tank was re-located in front of the front bulkhead along with the brake and clutch master cylinders. In the earliest versions, the wing panels were retained – although now made of lightweight glass fibre. (In other words they didn’t make one-piece front or rear clamshells.)
Dallara achieved around 260 kg weight savings over standard.
HERE ARE THE OTHER RACING CARS
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