MondialRegistry.org
History
The Ferrari Mondial
Development of the Mid-engine 2+2 Grand Tourismo
Enzo Ferrari had long wanted to open a line of smaller Grand Tourismo cars not only to complement the mighty V-12 street cars, but to add a higher volume product to generate funding for his first priority: racing. One initiative toward this end the 4 cylinder 'Ferrarina', a small one liter SOHC Bertone coupe later bought by the deNora family petrochemical establishment and marketed as the ASA 1000. Another stemmed from Ferrari's needing a smaller V-6 engine produced for Formula 2, the Dino, named for Ferrari's cherished first son Alfredino who passed away in his late twenties from complications of multiple sclerosis. In cooperation with Fiat, a 2 liter and later a 2.4 liter four cam 2-valve engine was developed for street and racing under the seperate brand 'Dino'. In addition, a Dino V-8 was developed both for sports cars as the 268 and Ferrari's Formula One effort. With John Surtees at the wheel, the V-8 captured the World Formula One Championship.
Ferrari 268 Mid-engine V-8 Sportscar
The spin-off new line of V-6 powered street cars were successful for both Fiat and Ferrari. The Ferrari Dinos, both the 206 and 246, were clothed in an achingly beautiful Pininfarina body on a brilliantly designed chassis featuring a mid-engined transversely mounted high revving V-6. The Ferrari Dino was produced and sold from 1969 through 1974, when pressure from it's main competitor, the Porsche 911, prompted a move toward an engine with more torque, and the percieved need for more practicality to match the German rival : a 2+2.
Ferrari 206 Dino
In 1975, a new V-8 powered Dino hit the market with a 3 liter engine and much more low end torque than the preceeding 2.6 liter V-6. This was a new car entirely in concept and execution, and was not so much the spiritual successor to the Dino 246, but an entirely new direction. In a complete break from the tradition of Pininfarina coachwork, Ferrari had chosen Bertone to do the body. And in contrast to the tiny curvaceous 2 seat Pininfarina Dino, the new car was an angular 2+2 clearly from the Bertone style of the time. While some reactions to the styling were mixed, there could be no issue with the power, flexibilty and heritage of the new Franco Rocci designed flat crank V-8. The new Dino 308GT/4 was in a flurry of new Italian sports with 2+2 seating, however more suggestive than actual. These included the Maserati Merak and Lamborghini Uracco as they joined the 308 Dino in a chase for some of the Porsche 911 market.
Dino 308 GT/4
In an effort to improve American sales, the Dino name was dropped and the car became the Ferrari 308 GT/4. The true successor to the 246 Dino, the 308 GTB/GTS came out in 1976 giving Ferrari two higher volume smaller car lines to augment the grand V-12s. The 308 GT/4 carried on until 1980 when a new Pininfarina designed 2+2 - a bit larger and more Grand Tourismo - was debuted: The Ferrari Mondial 8. With the Mondial, Ferrari now had two V-8 cars with clearly different missions: the GTB/S as sportscar and the Mondial as the Grand Touring car.
The new car was clearly in the Pininfarina family and related to its GTB sibling with the classic Pininfarina 'bow wave' styling, although very elegantly restrained. In fact, the entire design of the Mondial was one of subtle mature understatement, a stark contrast to the 1980s culture of flaunted excess as exemplified by stablemate Testarossa. With a 4" increase in wheelbase, the usable interior space and headroom was enormous when compared all other mid engine cars. This subtlety with "the best handling" chassis due to the increased wheelbase was very positively reviewed by the European motoring press, which raved about the new small GT from Ferrari. Unfortunately, the Mondial was introduced in America at the height of new emissions regulations, which strangled the small V-8 with still primitive emissions systems and fuel injection designed to meet pollution standards more than performance. While the US cars had the same wonderful chassis, handling and capability raved about in Europe, a less sophisticated American press obsessed with 0-60 mph time were cool in their reception, still expecting the "rip-n-snort" boy racer Ferraris and completely missed the elegance and GT attributes not lost on their European counterparts. The Mondial 8 did well never the less, and remains a fine Grand Touring car even today.
Mondial 8
More power came in 1983 with the introduction of the Mondial Quattrovalvole, or 'QV', offering the first racing derived 4 valve heads in a street car. The boost from the 200 hp of the Mondial 8 to the 240 hp of the Mondial QV greatly livened the performance of Ferrari's small GT. Perhaps even bigger news was the introduction of the Mondial QV Cabriolet, the first fully open Ferrari convertible in 10 years. While somewhat unjustly stigmafied from the early years, with the introduction of the QV and QV cab brought a new appreciation.
Mondial Quattrovalvole Cabriolet
More power still came with an increase in engine size to 3.2 liters up to 270 hp in Europe and 260 hp in US versions in the Mondial 3.2. In European trim tha accelleration times were now well below 7 seconds to 60 miles per hour, with the American version just tenths behind. A new integrated front bumper and grill which was likewise released on the new 328 freshened the look a bit. Five years into production, the Mondial had well matured into a sublime yet still elegantly understated small Grand Tourismo with levels of build quality and reliability that the press worldwide acclaimed were the best Maranello had ever offered. The Cabriolet continued to be very popular in America and running improvements to the car had made it very usable as a daily driver.
Mondial 3.2
The final version of the Mondial, the Mondial t, or transversale, was a bridge between two eras as it introduced technologies that would become the mainstay throughout the Ferrari range - the longitudinally mounted mid-ne and F1 transversale gearbox, Bosch electronic fuel injection and electically controllable suspension were all new for Ferrari in 1989. With the new technology came another increase in displacement to 3.4 liters, and horsepower jumped to around 300 giving the best performing Mondial ever with a top speed of 150 mph and 0-60 times of less than 6 seconds. But, as had always been the case, the real strength of the Mondial series remained in it's superior packaging of a mid-engine 2+2 with real-world usefulness, reliability and build quality.
The First Mondials
The V-8 mid-engine Mondials were not the first series of cars by Maranello to carry the name. In the early 1950s, the small but fiercely competitive Scuderia Ferrari released a two liter 4 cylinder customer sports racing car. These racing Mondials, all open barchettas except for two coupes, found great success with their owners in sportscar events worldwide.
