Remember Dallara Automobili? The Italian chassis manufacturer is famous for the development of motorsport racecars of Formula 1, IndyCar Series, GP2 /GP3 Series, Super Formula, Formula E, Formula 3 and Endurance racing. The founder of Dallara, racing-legend Gian Paolo Dallara turned 81 on 16 November. Now, to commemorate the anniversary, the Italian engineer has presented his first road-going car to the world.
Called the Dallara Stradale, this lightweight track car is two years in the making. We brought you the exclusive spy shots of the car being tested earlier this year. The development team had one goal – “to make a car to rediscover the pure pleasure of driving on the road or on the track.” All the motorsport expertise was involved in the development of the Stradale.
The Stradale weighs a mere 855 kilograms thanks to the extensive use of carbon fibre composite materials. Power comes from a 2.3-litre supercharged four-cylinder Ecoboost engine. The motor is boosted just enough to put down a whopping 400bhp on the tarmac. A six-speed manual transmission comes as a standard fitment. All the madness is controlled by a clever electronic gadgetry developed by Bosch. The power-to-weight ratio of 470bhp-per-tonne is phenomenal for a track car.
However, the Stradale is not just an all-out track car. The basic Barchetta configuration gets a minimalistic add-on of just a windscreen. By adding a T-Frame, the Stradale transforms into a road-going supercar. And with the addition of two gull-wing doors, the car becomes a coupe. Meanwhile, for the track, a rear wing installation is designed to achieve an aerodynamic downforce of 820kg. That’s almost the weight of the entire car.
The entire bodyshell is made of carbon fibre including the body panel for skirts and the carbon sheet mouldings for reinforcement. The suspension set-up is tuned on the same simulators where the legendary racecars were designed. Dallara says that the experienced test pilots have worked closely with engineers to define suspension, aerodynamics, engine and ergonomic specifications. There’s no questioning about the chassis dynamics since the very minds developed the legendary Bugatti Veyron and the KTM X-Bow
The CFD virtual development combined with the wind-tunnel testing highest downforce loads in any GT road vehicles. The tyres are custom made allowing the car to reach lateral accelerations of more than 2G under normal conditions. The Stradale is equipped with the advanced Bosch ESP stability control systems (including ABS-EBD-TCS-VDC) to ensure that the vehicle doesn’t kill you.
Dallara had plans of producing the Stradale in a limited number of 600 units. However, the first year’s production has already been sold out on nothing more than word of mouth.
