With all of the cylinder head design work being done in England back then, the
only reason I can think of why Rootes would go to Ferrari would be to give Lord
Rootes a company paid trip to sunny Italy!
I think the "Rootes-Ferrari" connection was just BSing by Lord Rootes and Enzo
because Rootes did not give a whatever for performance-he was only interested
in selling lots of Hillmans and making alot of money. In the end, he did not
do either and Chrysler bought Rootes and eventually killed it.
Jan
sosnaenergyconsulting@home.com wrote:
> Hi Jay:I seem to recall (I can't find it written down anywhere--drat!)that
early or mid-'60's Rootes had approached Ferrari to design a cylinder
head for the alpine.
At some time talks broke down and that was that.
Regards
David Sosna
Jay_Laifman@countrywide.com wrote:
>
> As long as we are on the topic of Italian machines, a few people have
> commented about the Ferrari connection with the Alpine. I know I've read
> about it here and there. But, I don't recall ever seeing anything more
> than that Lord Rootes was a friendly acquaintance with Ferrari. That they
> met in Italy to discuss some sort of engine supply and that by the time
> Rootes got back to England, Ferrari decided not to do anything. In the
> Langworth book, he says the deal with Ferrari was in 1962. He says that
> the Dino V6 was possibly the engine under consideration. I seem to recall
> a mention of an Alfa Romeo engine possibility. I presume that even though
> Ferrari first worked at Alfa Romeo, in the 60's there was no relationship
> between the companies. Is it Fiat owned now too? So, it wasn't the Alfa
> engine that Ferrari was going to supply, right? Which books or articles
> discuss this more? What are the other details? I seem to remember a
> napkin being part of the story.
>
> Jay
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