The
Ferrari 250 GTO is a GT car which was produced by
FerrariFerrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
from 1962 to 1964 for homologation into the FIA's
Group 3 Grand Touring CarThe Group 3 racing class referred to a set of regulations for Grand Touring Cars competing in sportscar racing and rallying events regulated by the FIA. These regulations were active, in various forms, from 1957 to 1981-1957 to 1965:...
category.
The numerical part of its name denotes the
displacementEngine displacement is the volume swept by all the pistons inside the cylinders of an internal combustion engine in a single movement from top dead centre to bottom dead centre . It is commonly specified in cubic centimeters , litres , or cubic inches...
in cubic centimeters of each cylinder of the
engineThe internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
, whilst GTO stands for "Gran Turismo Omologata",
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
for "Grand Touring
HomologatedHomologation is a technical term, derived from the Greek homologeo for "to agree", which is generally used in English to signify the granting of approval by an official authority...
."
When new, the GTO commanded an $18,000 purchase price in the United States, and buyers had to be personally approved by
Enzo FerrariEnzo Anselmo Ferrari Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian race car driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari car manufacturer...
and his dealer for North America,
Luigi ChinettiLuigi Chinetti was an Italian-born racecar driver, who emigrated to the United States during World War II and became an American citizen....
.
36 cars were made in the years '62/'63. In 1964 'Series II' was introduced, which had a slightly different look. Three such cars were made, and four older 'Series I' were given a 'Series II' body. It brought the total of GTOs produced to 39.
In 2004,
Sports Car InternationalSports Car International was an automobile magazine in the United States published by Ross Periodicals Inc. that was focused on sports cars. The magazine was published from 1986 to 2008. Its business offices were located in Novato, California....
placed the 250 GTO eighth on a list of Top Sports Cars of the 1960s, and nominated it the top sports car of all time. Similarly,
Motor Trend ClassicMotor Trend is an American automobile magazine. It first appeared in September 1949, issued by Petersen Publishing Company in Los Angeles, and bearing the tag line "The Magazine for a Motoring World". Petersen Publishing was sold to British publisher EMAP in 1998, who sold the former Petersen...
placed the 250 GTO first on a list of the "Greatest Ferraris of all time".
Design and development
The 250 GTO was designed to compete in
GT racingSports car racing is a form of circuit auto racing with automobiles that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built or related to road-going sports cars....
. It was based on the 250 GT SWB. Chief engineer
Giotto BizzarriniGiotto Bizzarrini is an Italian automobile engineer active from the 1950s through 1970s....
installed the 3.0
Lpic|200px|right|thumb|One litre is equivalent to this cubeEach side is 10 cm1 litre water = 1 kilogram water The litre is a metric system unit of volume equal to 1 cubic decimetre , to 1,000 cubic centimetres , and to 1/1,000 cubic metre...
V12A V12 engine is a V engine with 12 cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of six cylinders, usually but not always at a 60° angle to each other, with all 12 pistons driving a common crankshaft....
engine from the 250 Testa Rossa into the chassis from the 250 GT SWB and worked with designer Sergio Scaglietti to develop the body. After Bizzarrini and most other Ferrari engineers were fired in a dispute with Enzo Ferrari, development was handed over to new engineer
Mauro ForghieriMauro Forghieri is an Italian Formula One car designer.-Early life and Ferrari:Forghieri was born in Modena, the only child of Reclus and Afra Forghieri. His father, a turner, did war work during World War II for the Ansaldo mechanical workshops of Naples...
, who worked with Scaglietti to continue development of the body, including
wind tunnelA wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects.-Theory of operation:Wind tunnels were first proposed as a means of studying vehicles in free flight...
and track testing. Unlike most Ferraris, it was not designed by a specific individual or design house.
The rest of the car was typical of early-1960s Ferrari technology: hand-welded tube frame, A-arm front suspension, live-axle rear end,
disc brakeThe disc brake or disk brake is a device for slowing or stopping the rotation of a wheel while it is in motion.A brake disc is usually made of cast iron, but may in some cases be made of composites such as reinforced carbon–carbon or ceramic matrix composites. This is connected to the wheel and/or...
s, and Borrani wire wheels. The
PorschePorsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry....
designed five-speed gearbox was new to Ferrari GT racing cars; the metal gate that defined the shift pattern would become a tradition that is still maintained in current models. The interior was extremely basic, to the point where a speedometer was not installed in the instrument panel. Many of its switches came from the
Fiat 500The Fiat 500 is a car produced by the Fiat company of Italy between 1957 and 1975, with limited production of the Fiat 500 K estate continuing until 1977. The car was designed by Dante Giacosa....
.
Racing
FIA regulations as they applied in 1962 required at least one hundred examples of a car to be built in order for it to be homologated for Group 3 Grand Touring Car racing. However, Ferrari built only 39 250 GTOs (33 of the "normal" cars, three with the four-litre
330 engine sometimes called the "330 GTO" - recognizable by the large hump on the hood - and three "Type 64" cars, with revised bodywork). Ferrari eluded FIA regulations by numbering its chassis out of sequence, using jumps between each to suggest cars that didn't exist.
The car debuted at the
12 Hours of SebringThe 12 Hours of Sebring is an annual motorsport endurance race for sports cars held at Sebring International Raceway, a former Army Air Force base in Sebring, Florida...
in 1962, driven by American
Phil HillPhilip Toll Hill, Jr., was a United States automobile racer and the only American-born driver to win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship. Hill was described as a "thoughtful, gentle man" and once said, "I'm in the wrong business. I don't want to beat anybody, I don't want to be the big hero...
(the Formula One World Driving Champion at the time) and Belgian
Olivier GendebienOlivier Gendebien was a war hero and race car driver. He has been cited as "one of the greatest sportscar racers of all time".-Background:...
. Although originally annoyed that they were driving a GT-class car instead of one of the full-race Testa Rossas competing in the prototype class, the experienced pair impressed themselves (and everyone else) by finishing 2nd overall behind the
Testa RossaThe Ferrari TR, or 250 Testa Rossa, is a race car model built by Ferrari in the 1950s and 60s. These cars dominated their arenas, with variations winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1958, 1960, and 1961. They were closely related to the rest of the Ferrari 250 line, especially the legendary 250...
of
BonnierJoakim "Jo" Bonnier was a Swedish sportscar racing and Formula One driver who raced for various teams.-Early life:...
and
ScarfiottiLudovico Scarfiotti was a Formula One and sports car driver from Italy. Just prior to entering Formula One, he won the 1963 24 Hours of Le Mans for Ferrari. He later participated in 12 World Championship Formula One grands prix, and many non-championship races. He won one World Championship...
.
Ferrari would go on to win the over 2000cc class of the FIA's International Championship for GT Manufacturers in 1962, 1963 and 1964, the 250 GTO being raced in each of those years.
The 250 GTO was one of the last front-engined cars to remain competitive at the top level of sports car racing. Before the advent of vintage racing the 250 GTO, like other racing cars of the period, passed into obsolescence. Some were used in regional races, while others were used as road cars.
Collectibility
From the late 1970s to the late 1980s,
classic carA classic car is an older car; the exact meaning is variable. The Classic Car Club of America maintains that a car must be between 20 and 40 years old to be a classic, while cars over 45 years fall into the Antique Class.- Classic Car Club of America :...
values rose rapidly and the 250 GTO, touted as the
FerrariFerrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
that most successfully embodies the salient traits of the marque, became the most valuable of all Ferraris.
A 250 GTO (4757GT) seized by the FBI belonging to the deceased Robert C. "Chris" Murray, a drug dealer who fled the United States in 1984, was sold in a sealed auction in 1987 for approximately $1.6 million. Murray bought the car in 1982 from a Beverly Hills dealer with $250,000 in cash from a
backpackA backpack is, in its simplest form, a cloth sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, but there can be exceptions...
full of $20 and $50 notes. In 1989, at the peak of the boom, a 250 GTO was sold to a Japanese buyer for $14.6 million plus commission. By 1994 that example changed hands for about $3.5 million. In 2008, a British buyer bought a 250 GTO that formerly belonged to
Lee Kun-heeLee Kun-hee is Chairman of Samsung Electronics. He resigned on April 21, 2008 owing to Samsung Slush funds scandal, but returned on March 24, 2010. Lee has a degree in economics from Waseda University in Tokyo and attended an MBA course at George Washington University in the United States in 1966...
of
Samsung ElectronicsSamsung Electronics is a South Korean multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul...
at an auction for a record £15.7 million. In May 2010,
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
DJ Chris Evans bought chassis number 4675 GT for £12 million.
Scarcity and high monetary values led to the creation of several replica 250 GTOs on more common Ferrari chassis. Misrepresentations of the original cars, offered for sale at full market value, have been reported.
See also
- Ferrari 250
The Ferrari 250 is a sports car built by Ferrari from 1953 to 1964. The company's most successful early line, the 250 series included several variants. It was replaced by the 275 and the 330.-Similarities:...
- Ferrari 250 GT Drogo - the "Breadvan", a 250 SWB modified by Giotto Bizzarrini
Giotto Bizzarrini is an Italian automobile engineer active from the 1950s through 1970s....
and Piero Drogo for Giovanni VolpiCount Giovanni Volpi di Misurata was an automobile racing manager. He inherited a fortune, at the age of 24, from his father, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, a politician financier and founder of the renowned Venice Film Festival....
, in order to challenge the 250 GTO
External links