Ferrari GTO: A reputation undeserved?

Instead Gavin was completely correct in identifying it as a gorgeous, high-speed weapon with which to swallow entire countries in a day, a sense of occasion of rarely rivalled richness and depth. I can only imagine how wonderful it would have been to be sat behind those Veglia dials for hour after hour at triple digit speeds as the 2855cc V8 boosted by its two IHI turbos (the capacity dictated by the 1.4 multiplication factor applied to turbo engines needing to come in under the Group B 4-litre capacity limit) blasted you homeward on clear, dry, warm roads.

On the sometimes damp, rather more sinuous and probably rather colder roads I encountered, a different side to its character emerged. A somewhat more spiky, cantankerous side. One second you’d be gently trying to pile on the torque as a corner opened out in front, the next a great, fat gob of it would arrive, wrenching the Goodyear Eagles loose from the tarmac, leaving its driver briefly very busy and, for the rest of the drive, really rather alarmed.

Somewhat surprised by this turn of events I called an old family friend, the now sadly departed Mike Salmon who did Le Mans 13 times over a 22 year period, sharing with the likes of Richard Attwood, Brian Redman and David Hobbs, whose day job had been chief salesman at Maranello Concessionaires when it was Ferrari’s official UK importer. And he confirmed in his always robust, unequivocal way that his and my experience of the car tallied precisely. And remember I drove the F40 and F50 on the same roads at the same time and despite their vastly greater potential, was scared by neither.

So what was going on? It could have been a number of things that were not the car’s fault: it could have been poorly set up, it could have had a sticky wastegate, I could have hit a patch of something on the road I missed in the other. Or, it could have been those tyres and their wholly inadequate 255mm width at the back. Both the F40 and F50 had larger diameter wheels covered by rear boots fully eight sections wider. Or it could be that the F40 with its Kevlar-reinforced spaceframe was in another league for torsional rigidity (I’ve read three times stiffer but cannot confirm), let alone the carbon F50. Or maybe in the few years that separated the GTO and F40, Ferrari’s mastery of turbo technology came on apace. But actually, I suspect it was a combination of all that.

But whatever the cause, the simple truth is I just didn’t trust the GTO, not at least sufficiently to drive it in a way anything toting that badge should be driven. I’ve been lucky enough to drive the GTOs that came both before and after – 250 and 599 – and in their own very different ways they deliver sublime driving experiences because you can drive both in total confidence, sure that neither is going to try to mug you when you least expect it.

And that, above all, is the thing with these cars. However fast and beautiful it might be, whatever its heritage, however fabulous it makes you feel to be inside it, if you don’t have that confidence – the confidence even the F40 provides and which the F50 gives in spades – you’re never going to get the most out of it. Which is how I felt about the GTO.

Who knows: on another road, on another day I might have felt completely differently about the car, but as hacks we can only report as we find in the situation in which we find ourselves. And right there, right then and for all its incredible attributes, the GTO fell some distance short of doing justice to the badge it had been honoured to carry.

The last GTO, by James Mills

The Italian registration papers for EE 304 AK list its first owner as one Andreas Nikolaus Lauda – better known as Niki Lauda, the Austrian racing driver who won three Formula 1 championships (1975, ’77 and ’84), survived a near-death accident at the Nürburgring and would remain one of the most influential figures behind the scenes of F1 up until his death, in 2019.

By all accounts, the rosso corsa GTO shouldn’t exist. It was built after production of the supercar had ended. No amount of money should have been able to buy one. But when it came to chassis number ZFFPA16B000058329, it wasn’t about the money; it was about healing the relationship between two titans of motorsport.

That relationship had unravelled after Lauda retired his Ferrari from the final race of the 1976 season, in Japan, despite being favourite to take the championship. Like all professional racing drivers, Lauda had laid his life on the line for his sport and come perilously close to losing it at the Nürburgring, in August. Il Commendatore didn’t like to lose face, and is said to have felt that Lauda should have raced on through the rain at Fuji (especially as the weather went on to improve) and secured the Scuderia back-to-back F1 titles.

Despite taking another championship for Ferrari in 1977, Lauda’s relationship with Enzo was strained. He left for Brabham the following year. By the end of the ’85 season, after achieving a third title with McLaren, Lauda hung up his driving gloves, and the following year he took on a consultancy role with Ferrari and Fiat. Which led to the most pressing question of any new job: what company car should I pick?

In Lauda’s mind, the answer was obvious: the Ferrari 288 GTO. The problem was, production was all accounted for. In his signature purple ink, Enzo Ferrari had personally signed off each and every one of the 271 clients who were granted the privilege of ownership. By the time Lauda asked the question, the answer was a respectful but frank impossible!

Ever the networker, Lauda turned to Vittorio Ghidella, the CEO of Fiat, and before you knew it, Ferrari and Ghidella had concluded that even though production had finished, for Lauda an exception could be made and one more GTO would be brought into the world. The significant cost would be split between the two companies.

And so it was that in March 1986, Lauda’s new company car was ready to be handed over. A discreet presentation was held on neutral ground at an airfield in Reggio Emilia, before Lauda drove – at some haste – back to Salzburg, accompanied by Austrian journalist Herbert Völker. ‘“Can you feel the tail trying to swing out?” asked the champ. Yes I could, and I wish I couldn’t,’ Völker would later write.

Unsurprisingly, a triple F1 champion travelling by new supercar wearing temporary registration plates for foreign export saw cars try to give chase, impromptu conversations at toll booths and crowds gather at petrol stations.

Once ensconced in his home’s garage, Lauda kept the EE 304 AK plates on the car, where they remain to this day. Now in private ownership, the story behind the last 288 GTO made, a totem of a rift healed, surely makes it the most desired of all.