Numbers first, because with the Dino they are the story: 1.5 L (1489.35 cc) Dino 65° V6, 180 PS. Ferrari built from 1957, at the height of the post-war boom.
Where it came from
Dino (Italian: [ˈdiːno]), named after Alfredo "Dino" Ferrari (1932-1956) who died a young age but had championed V6 engines at Ferrari, was first used as name for Ferrari race cars with engines smaller than 12 cylinders. The type came into existence in late 1956 with a front-engined Formula Two racer powered by a Dino V6 engine, and also was used in front-engine open sportscar racers. In 1961, Ferrari adopted the mid-engined, rear-drive layout, putting the V6 behind the driver in both the new 1.5 Liter 156 F1 Formula One as well as in the Ferrari SP series of sportscar racers. In 1965, Ferrari started to develop two kinds of mid-engine V6 Dino sports cars: one was intended mainly for customers racing in the 2.0 Liter Group 4 Sportscar category that required at least 50 to be built, but too few Dino 206S were made, thus they had to enter as Group 6 Prototype.
The other was a road going GT car which used Dino as a brand. To have hundreds of Dino V6 engines built in order to achieve homologation in Formula Two of the time, FIAT built the road car engines, and used it also in Fiat cars, and later in the Lancia Stratos. The name Dino was used for some models with engines smaller than 12 cylinders, it was an attempt by the company to offer a relatively low-cost sports car. The Ferrari name remained reserved for its premium V12 and flat-12 models until 1976, when "Dino" was retired in favour of full Ferrari branding for the new mid engine V8 GT.
Under the skin
Power comes from 1.5 L (1489.35 cc) Dino 65° V6; 180 PS is the published figure. It weighs 512 kg. Work it out per tonne and you get about 352 horsepower — genuine supercar pace. It shifts through a 4-speed manual. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The wheelbase is 2160 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Maserati 150 GT, the Maserati 150S — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Ferrari catalogue sit the 250 GTE and the 328 GTS.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Dino has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.