This 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO Is Bring a Trailer's 250,000th Auction
Bidding for the Ferrari supercar is already into the millions. After a dozen years of providing the internet's best window-shopping experience, Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos) has just posted its 250,000th listing. It's a heck of a good one. A Ferrari 288 GTO doesn't turn up; it arrives with authority. There are plenty of arguments to be had for both its ancestors and descendants as the greatest or most iconic Ferrari, but there's only one car so incredible that it could mend the fence between Enzo Ferrari and Niki Lauda. The last of these cars was specially built to do just that, approved personally by Enzo for Niki. The later F40 is wilder but also far more common, bereft of even the most basic amenities, and not quite as pretty. The earlier 250 GTO gets a V-12 soundtrack and costs as much as a sizable mansion, but doesn't offer modern performance. The 288 GTO has the compact curves that made us all fall in love with Magnum P.I.'s series of Ferrari 308s, but offers unbridled twin-turbocharged power that's straight out of rally racing's wildest days. See all results for used 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO for sale near 20147 This example is a 1985 model and thus is one of the first 200 cars constructed to complete homologation approval for Group B racing rules. Only 272 cars were made in total, the last of them being the car Enzo approved when Lauda came to work for Ferrari and Fiat after retiring as a three-time F1 world champion in 1985. To the uninitiated, a 288 GTO looks nearly identical to a 308 GTS, but the similarities aren't even skin deep. Rather than conventional construction, the GTO has composite and Kevlar bodywork to save weight, the wheelbase is more than four inches longer, and it's much wider. If you briefly see a red 1980s Ferrari flicker past out of the corner of your eye and think, "Was that a Ferrari 288 GTO?" then no, it wasn't. Not unless you were walking around Maranello near where Ferrari's Classiche department probably has one in the shop and a technician might be taking it out for a test run. The easiest way to spot one is either by the rectangular quad-headlights up front or the tell-tale silver of the rear differential. Unlike the 308's transversely mounted engine, the 288 GTO carries its V-8 in a longitudinal layout to provide room for the twin IHI turbochargers and all their plumbing, and that packaging pushes the diff into view Speaking of the GTO's V-8, that displaces 2.9 liters (2855cc if you want to get specific about it, and the FIA did), slightly smaller than the 308's but with twin water-cooled turbochargers and double air-to-air intercoolers. Power was just under 400 horsepower with 366 pound-feet of torque, in a car that weighs some 200 pounds less than a Toyota GR86. See all results for used 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO for sale near 20147 As an evolution of this platform, the F40 was more extreme and a bit quicker, but the leather seats and amenities like air conditioning make the 288 GTO a better resolved road car, with all the punch you could want This one has had an interesting life, having spent time in a Mexican privateer racer's collection. As all his Ferraris were silver, this collector had the GTO painted that color—all production models left the factory in red. It changed hands a few times since then, notably being refurbished, returned to its original color, and certified by Ferrari Classiche in 2011. Recent service includes all fluids and filter changes done at a Ferrari dealership, along with replacing various perishables such as belts and so forth. All the documentation appears to line up, which you would expect for a car that'll fetch multiple millions. The odometer shows the equivalent of 14K miles, and a 288 GTO is a rare enough beast that previous owners have put next to no mileage on it in the past decade. But if it had 15K miles on it, would it be worth any less? How about 16K miles? The beauty of a car this rare, in this well-prepared condition, is that it's just waiting for the next Lauda-like owner to come along: somebody who'll drive it, at least a little. If you owned arguably the best Ferrari road car of them all, wouldn't you? The auction ends on July 7. Redemption at Last?
