‘The 288 GTO commanded a premium from the day it was launched in 1984 and has never fallen below the original £73,000 list price, even in the worst economic climate – the Ferrari F40 did,’ says Tom Hartley Jnr, who confirms prices are now well up into the millions.
Yet there is so much more to this homologation special than seven-figure values. Known officially as the Ferrari GTO, inspired by Group B motorsport and developed by Ferrari F1 royalty Harvey Postlethwaite and Nicola Materazzi, the GTO’s cocktail of turbocharging and lightweight composite bodywork owes as much to the 126C F1 racer of 1981 as it does Group B’s radical rally cars. That it reprised the Gran Turismo Omologato initials for the first time since the 250 GTO, kick-started Ferrari’s hypercar lineage (F40, F50, Enzo, LaFerrari and the new F80 have all followed), and reinvigorated a portfolio that Enzo Ferrari himself believed excessively gentrified is also important. But right now prestige dealer Hartley Jnr would like me to dwell quite intently on how much these things are worth 40 years on. I’m about to drive a customer car, after all.
He is well placed to comment on values, having sold around 45 examples since 1997, sometimes three or four times over. Prices have rocketed during that time. ‘The cheapest I ever bought was £115,000 with only 14,000km,’ he says. ‘I remember when they were £250k, and when they lingered at £350k for a while before jumping up very quickly to three-quarters of a million around 2008 or 2009. The first I sold for £1m was in 2010.’
Ah, if only… today Hartley Jnr reveals he has just agreed a sale at £3.5m, a figure that is both astonishing and par for the course. Then he hands me the keys to his client’s car, chassis number 54781. ‘Please be very careful,’ he asks. While this goes without saying, equally it’d be remiss not to feel all that boost kick, sending this 1160kg (without fluids) projectile down the road with its 395bhp rasping and singing. To understand what makes a GTO so special and convey its excitement in words as best I’m able. While being Very Careful.
Here goes. I slot down into a largely black interior on a Connolly leather seat that’s bolted almost directly to the floor, its perforated centres ribbed, the supportive bolsters apparently moulded around super-waif piloti. The vibe is serious and most definitely focused, yet this is no stripped-out pseudo racer – there are carpets and basic doorcards, for instance. A small-diameter three-spoke steering wheel lies before me, the dash is covered in soft technical fabric, and there are three auxiliary gauges in the centre console supplementing the main four-dial instrument binnacle – the rev-counter redlines at 7800rpm, but reflections render all the dials less than helpful at speed.
My legs are skewed heavily inboard to the right by wheelarch intrusion (all GTOs are left-hookers) but the pedals are perfection – the rubberised brake tapers like a folded page in its lower right corner and snuggles close to the floor-hinged accelerator. When I drop my right hand off the small-diameter three-spoke steering wheel, it falls as though magnetised to a cue-ball gear-shifter that sprouts from an open gate on a long slender stalk of aluminium. Did Ferrari’s engineers intend me to heel-and-toe and row my way up and down the ’box at every opportunity? Is Italy majority Catholic?
Mostly I’m comfortable in here, although at 6ft 1in tall I have only about an inch of headroom and I’d prefer it if the seat went back a similar amount further. When I open the engine lid it’s obvious why it won’t – less than half of the 2.8-litre V8 engine block is on display (the ‘288’ in the unofficial name is used to differentiate it from the 250 GTO), the rest being pushed so far up the Kevlar and Nomex bulkhead that it bulges almost pregnantly into the cabin between the seats.
Rather it’s the twin Behr intercoolers that first catch my eye, perched just behind the engine like a pair of toastie makers, the pipework bent down over the chassis frame to two surprisingly dainty IHI turbochargers in the depths. (This is not Ferrari’s first turbo road car – that distinction lies with the 208 GTB Turbo of 1982, which slotted a 2.0-litre turbo V8 into a 308 body to dodge Italy’s punitive VAT for larger motors.)
At the rear, a Ferrari-branded transmission casing hangs low between the rear wheels like an aroused stallion’s undercarriage – a visual tell-tale that, while the F114B V8 engine block is related to the naturally aspirated 308 GTB’s, it’s turned through 90º to a longitudinal position – the better for handling balance, and easier to change gear ratios at the racetrack.
Developed in parallel with Lancia’s Group C LC2 by Materazzi, this engine also produces far more power than the 308 GTB, with 395bhp at 7000rpm and 366lb ft on tap from 3800rpm – figures that suggest lag, yes, but also a surprising incentive to chase the revs for a forced-induction motor. They also represent a large increase over the entry-level 308’s 252bhp/209lb ft. There are so many cooling slats in the engine lid it could double as a jalousie window, but heat still soaks through the carpeted bulkhead. The limited options list included air-conditioning and electric windows, both welcome additions to ‘our’ example.
Twist the little ignition key and wait a second, then press the black rubberised ignition button alongside it. The engine fires quickly with trademark flat-plane crank gruffness and burbles away percussively like a pot of water boiling on a stove. First is down and left on a dog-leg and the clutch so heavy I’m convinced I’ll stall, yet the bite is so forgiving and the engine so tractable I don’t blush all day. Unassisted steering is a faff at parking speeds, but the GTO is surprisingly docile about town.
You absolutely feel the road surface beneath you, but all the edges are rounded off, the distortion filtered as the body stays spirit-level flat. Servo-assisted brakes are easy to modulate, the engine flexible even when it’s obviously off-boost. That a 288 feels so compact and that visibility is so good only help to swell my confidence – there’s a fantastic view over the low scuttle plus over-sized mirrors and a vertical rear screen to keep track of The Overtaken.
Hartley Jnr owns both the earliest surviving GTO (the second of six prototypes) and an F40 (the car that in essence took the GTO’s mechanicals and shrouded them in far more aerodynamic bodywork) and confirms the GTO is the more useable car. ‘For me a GTO delivers a highly comparable driving experience to an F40, with similar power, similar weight, that twin-turbo kick,’ he outlines, ‘but the GTO is a much more sophisticated car to drive with a few more creature comforts, where the F40 is raw, a racecar on the road.’
Everyone stares and who can blame them? It’s such a gorgeous shape. As Hartley Jnr puts it, the layman might confuse it for ‘one of those cars that Magnum used to drive’, but a GTO is so distantly related to the Ferrari 308 that even a DNA test would prove inconclusive.
Parked up and only 1120mm tall, it seems to lie like a voluptuous Rubens nude on a chaise longue, all generous hips, pinched waist, fulsome, er, front wings and – who? Moi? – pop-up headlights. The 16in centre-lock Speedline alloys of a split-rim construction are jewel-like finishing touches. It’s the work of Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina.
‘It was the last Ferrari I personally designed and managed,’ 86-year-old Fioravanti tells Octane in an emailed note, the end of a line that began in 1965 and included Dino, Daytona and – most relevantly to GTO – the 308 and 328.
Fioravanti describes the 288 as a ‘derivation’ of the 308, which is why initial design work was conducted in the testing department at Maranello rather than a design studio. The genesis was an unfinished 308 chassis, its wheelbase ultimately lengthened by 110mm, the tracks widened and 8in wide front and 10in wide rear alloys fitted. The engorged bodywork with which Fioravanti shrouded all that is mostly a mix of lightweight composite panels – not the later aluminium bodies of the 308 – though the 288’s doors are steel, its bonnet Kevlar and the roof a mix of Kevlar and carbonfibre. Look closely and you’ll see the rear quarter glass tapers in where it meets the flying buttresses, neatly disguising an additional cooling pathway for the turbo engine.
Quad lights set low in the front bumper add differentiation from the 308, but their fixed position lets you flash other drivers out of the way without waiting for the pop-ups to raise, a crucial consideration given the performance. At the rear, a Kamm tail reduces overall length by 5mm compared with the 308, despite the longer wheelbase, with three slats like slashed claw-marks in the rear wings that reference the original GTO.
If the look is comparable to a 308, the GTO’s underpinnings are very significantly altered. A tubular steel spaceframe replaces the 308’s semi-monocoque construction and the GTO’s wheelbase is stretched to 2450mm to accommodate the new longitudinal engine position. Only 272 were produced through to 1987, all Rosso Corsa, marking Ferrari’s return to low-volume series production for the first time since the 365 California nearly two decades before (and easily exceeding Group B’s 200-unit homologation requirement).
This car is entirely as it left Maranello in 1985, to be delivered to the founder of the Ferrari Club Germany. The matching-numbers engine and gearbox are complemented not only by original panels (body panels are unique to each car and numbered – lift the filler flaps for oil and fuel on each rear flank for evidence of that; even all those vent panels are individually stamped). This car’s paint is all-original, too.
It all weighs on my mind as a national-limit sign gives me the all-clear to explore the GTO’s performance on a B-road that is both conveniently close to Hartley Jnr’s place and actually throws some decent challenge into the mix. It heaves over the landscape, twisting and rising in turns tight enough for me to really lean on this car and feel how it responds when I work it harder against the grain of a chunky surface texture.
The GTO’s V8 is obviously turbocharged in its fundamental characteristics – bit flat down low, epic drama above 4000rpm – but there’s also more than enough low-end muscle for normal driving, plus the throttle is surprisingly responsive even when it’s not really on boost. It means you always feel connected to this car, not distanced by turbo fuzz. Keep it pinned and there is a kind of foreboding as those turbos begin to spool, and when I push through 4000rpm, it really takes off on a spike of boost, feeling startlingly urgent, the surprisingly lofty peak encouraging me to run up towards 7000rpm. Forty years old and this performance remains vital – it must have been mind-blowing to run up to 190mph in-period.
Thankfully this car’s recent and very healthy 16in Michelins bite into the surface with real conviction. A tall first gear lets me dig into the power confidently out of junctions, and, while second and third are much shorter and more closely stacked, there’s still adhesion to work against.
I do not feel like the GTO will spit me off the road – in fact, the occasional flares of on-boost wheelspin are malleable more than snatchy. The gearshifts themselves initially feel a little sticky until I learn to put my back into it, particularly with a nice confident blip of throttle going down the ’box, which just happens to feel and sound fantastic.
Even driven with flourishes like that, the whooshes and p-tish noises synonymous with turbocharging are all but inaudible – when I back off the throttle quickly on-boost I’m treated to a nasally, angry rasp, not a goose in a flap. But what’s truly special about the GTO is its handling, a combination of high-definition feedback, linearity and bump suppression – both through the suspension itself and the unassisted rack-and-pinion helm when it’s loaded into a turn.
That steering is glorious, waking up with perfect weighting immediately off-centre, pointing the nose swiftly into the apex and constantly feeding back grip and surface conditions while never becoming so ‘noisy’ as to distract. Suspension that felt so supple around town continues to be defined by its elasticity – a connection to the surface that filters out all the bad stuff, like running down the road in a supportive pair of trainers rather than sprinting barefoot.
As the road begins to plunge downhill, I sweep the steering into a bend to discover there’s enough roll to convey building cornering forces but that body control is excellent and there’s no delayed action as the rear suspension ‘catches’ the weight of the engine. Nor is there any sense that the V8 wants to drag the rear end out of shape, or that the powerful and feelsome brakes will upset the balance if you really stand on them. It is a car engineered from the off to deal with its generous power outputs in an era when electronic aids were in the infancy and certainly absent here.
I pick up the pace, working the front axle harder and the GTO flows with gorgeous precision, only ever encouraging me to explore further. Everything I’m experiencing says it’ll be nicely balanced and easy to gather up if I get on the power early to mix steering lock with a hit of boost. I dip a toe at the edges curiously, feeling the tyres nibble at the boundaries of grip. This thing feels unbelievably good, so much more involving than its Porsche 959 contemporary, and so sweetly balanced…
In fact, the scariest thing about it is the value. £3-4m! I just can’t. Instead I quit while I’m ahead and return to Tom Hartley Jnr’s place with this highly original car still very much in one piece rather than chancing my arm.
Back in the showroom, Hartley Jnr shows me around the 288 GTO he’s just sold, as well as one of only six GTO Evoluziones that were born to race but never did due to Group B’s cancellation at the end of 1986. With the three lined up in chronological order, it’s like looking at the March of Progress illustration, especially how the F40 takes the Evoluzione’s rather bulbous design and tidies it into something altogether more cohesive, not to mention so much more futuristic. It’s hard to believe that only a year separates them.
Which to pick? Some of Hartley’s clients don’t have to, setting their hearts instead on collecting all the Ferrari supercars. But for Hartley Jnr himself, the GTO will always remain special.
‘For many years people would buy the two [GTO and F40] but, as cars have become more collectable and prices have increased, more people have decided to invest in the Big Five,’ he explains. That’d be the 288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari.
‘Of all those cars, I would say GTOs are in better hands, in long-term ownership with collectors who are not motivated to sell. Just look at the market. Ferrari built over 1300 F40s, so there are always several for sale. Similarly F50s and Enzos. With LaFerraris you just choose your colour. But there has only been one GTO for sale worldwide recently and that’s the car we’ve agreed to sell this week.’
After experiencing this GTO first-hand, it’s understandable why owners are so reluctant to let go – far beyond the seven-figure values, Ferrari’s first supercar remains an astonishing drive to this day.
1985 Ferrari 288 GTO specifications
Engine 2855cc 32-valve V8, DOHC per bank, fuel injection, inter-cooled twin IHI turbochargers
Power 395bhp @ 7000rpm
Torque 366lb ft @ 3800rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Steering Unassisted rack and pinion
Suspension Front and rear: unequal-length wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar
Brakes Discs
Weight 1160kg (dry)
Top speed 190mph
0-62mph 4.8sec
