OWNER / Dallara Stradale

OWNER / Maserati Shamal

OWNER

Dallara Stradale

Owner: Marwan @m3.5.1 Location: Sharjah, UAE Date Visited: February 11th 2022 Photography: Del Gregory

It was back in 2011 when Marwan first visited with Dallara through a personal introduction by a mutual friend. He didn’t realise at that time but it would be an eight year journey of discovery about all things Dallara, and where during that journey “Dallara became family”. Through the process of this bespoke customisation, through to the delivery of his car, (as a present to himself for his birthday in December of 2019), Marwan had effectively joined the Dallara family.

Gian Paolo Dallara himself is now 86 and has a rich automotive history before founding the marque which now bears his name. Dallara had the desire to create a car bearing his own name after having worked with various manufacturers and overseeing their projects ranging from the development of Formula 1 and Formula 3 cars as well as Indycars and even designing the chassis of sports cars for other manufacturers, notably Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Alfa Romeo and this goes right back to the 1960’s where Dallara first worked with such greats as Giotto Bizzarrini and Ferruccio Lamborghini.

The first of his own cars (001) was eventually delivered to the great man himself, on the occasion of his 81st birthday, at the company’s headquarters in Varano de’ Melegari, Italy, in 2017.

The first 100 cars are signed by Gian Paolo Dallara, meaning Marwans at number (042) has been duly signed. So far Marwan has only put 4,000 kms on the car and mostly locally in the UAE

at shows, meetings and local drives, but plans to take it to Europe in the future to enjoy some of the roads through the cars ‘homeland’.

Car number (042) was delivered to the UAE in December 2019 in Black with a Tan interior, with decisions being made along the way whether to have a roof and or doors, which are options of this very special Italian sports car. After consideration, and taking into account where the car would be used, Marwan decided on both the roof and the door options, and it looks amazing with the gullwing doors opened.

I have to say amongst the many special cars Marwan owns, (and there are many), it was the Dallara Stradale that immediately caught my eye as I arrived at his home in Sharjah. It was parked next to his new Land Rover Defender, which he currently uses as his dailydrive, but the Dallara was so stunning in the sunlight it had even attracted some of the family chickens to come and take a look at their reflections in the shine of the bodywork.