I had tempered my expectations. Sure, it was going to be fast. It
was going to look lovely. But 70s/80s supercars are meant to be as
disappointing in reality as they are iconic in reputation. Right?
Most will think it's a 308; those that know will know
Wrong. Turns out the
288 GTO doesn't disappoint. Not even slightly. A hero car before I saw
it in the metal it's now utterly cemented in my personal number one spot. How much
they going for now? Oh...No matter, I need to commit some words to the page
before the comedown kicks in and the realisation I don't have the keys in my
hand any more dawns.
What makes the
GTO so special? Well, sure, it's worth a million. They only made 272
of them. It's easily the best looking mid-engined Ferrari ever built, elegantly
treading the line between beauty and aggression with perfect proportions and
exquisite detailing. It's got Ferrari's most celebrated and exclusive model
suffix and bona fide 'omologato' provenance, even if the category it was built
for moved in a different direction. It stands as the intersection between the
way Ferrari used to do things - tubular frames, handbuilt
craftsmanship, zero
driver aids - and the modern age of turbos, composite materials and lunatic
performance. Do the maths on all that and you'll realise why most probably
don't get used as intended. Which is a tragedy, because, more than anything
else, as a driving machine it's even more exceptional than you'd dare hope.
Here's where it all gets a bit different though
I expected it to be truculent. I expected it to be scary.
That it's neither of these things as you pull away is a bit of a surprise. It
feels small and wieldy, the visibility is great. The low-geared and unassisted
steering is weighty at low speeds but soon lightens up and, with the fluids
warm, the long, ball-topped gearshifter clicks and clacks around the evocative
open gate smoothly and positively. The pedals are off-set into the centre of
the car but the brake pedal and throttle - latter with exposed linkage visible
disappearing into the centre tunnel - are perfectly placed for heel'n'toe and
instinctively fast and positive in response for doing so. The inertia-free response
of the engine and the sharp clutch would seem ready to catch you out but are
actually pretty friendly and the 16-inch magnesium OZs leave plenty of sidewall
to soak up the bumps. Only the occasional shudder through the steering column
and stubborn refusal to go into reverse lives up to those eccentricities you
read about as a kid in those magazine roadtests.
The front end wanders a little but the controls are all
pin-sharp and beautifully weighted and the consistent, harmonious feel to them
immediately soothes your racing pulse. There's nothing especially exotic about
the flat-cranked blare of the 2.8-litre V8 but the whooshing of boost adds some
theatre and once those turbos spool up you've got other things on your mind.
Below about 4,000rpm the GTO feels really fast. Above it feels absolutely
ballistic but the transition is progressive rather than binary and the power
band feels vast and exploitable. As it should given a specific output of 140hp
per litre.
I've no doubt it becomes properly scary as you get nearer
the limit. But at a considered pace the GTO is utterly absorbing, astonishingly
accommodating, readily exploitable and - most of all - fun. Yes, fun!
Back to basics but how it should be
Here's the major revelation. It's a brilliant road car.
Somehow the performance is both completely relevant to street use and yet at
the same time so utterly inappropriate as to be almost comedic. 400hp in this
day and age isn't quite as mental as it was back in the day but the GTO is
properly, thrillingly fast and the sensory overload as it spools up and things
go all a bit blurry is exactly the kind of turbocharged rush we want. And that
modern turbo engines seem so keen to mask. Boo! Give
us our boost back!
It'll be interesting to see how Ferrari handles this with the
488 GTB we'll be driving next week. Like many manufacturers they'll
likely be wanting to keep it feeling linear and normally aspirated, so as not
to spook those who've grown up with howling normally aspirated 360s, 430s and
458s. But at the same time with legacy like this why not make it feel
overboosted and a bit unhinged? We'll see which way they have chosen to go very
soon. What's astonishing in this modern context of downsized, turbocharged V8
supercars is how far ahead of its time the GTO was.
You know the modern car it most reminds me of? The
Alfa 4C. Or, at least, the car the 4C could be if someone from Alfa Romeo
took a GTO out for a day, came back used it as inspiration for a proper set-up
and controls calibration. Sure, it's not got the relative performance advantage
the GTO had over its contemporary rivals. Or the manual gearbox. But at a basic
sensory level the Alfa has a lot of the same DNA, from the size and seating
position to the view out, power delivery and even the noise.
Stop grinning, you've got to give it back now
But, of course, even properly set up it could never match
the real thing's iconic status, its finely balanced combination of beauty and
aggression, its surprising combination of delicacy and brute force. I love
everything about this car. Even the way you can see the gearbox jutting out
from under its truncated rear valance, reminding you this is something over and
above the 308 family it superficially resembles.
I'd have been blown away just seeing a GTO. Having driven it
I can't think of a single machine that encapsulates all I love about fast cars
more. Damn. With that I've probably just put it another couple of hundred grand
out of reach.
Never meet your heroes? Rubbish. Drive them if you can. And
relish every second.
Dan
Thanks to Wilton House's Lord Pembroke for letting us drive
his GTO! To see this car and many more like it come to the Wilton Classic &
Supercar with Castrol Edge on June 6-7, including the exclusive PistonHeads
Wilton House Sunday Service.
[Sources: Ferrari] http://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-blog/driving-the-ferrari-288-gto-ph-blog/32194
Photos: Anthony Fraser/Dan
by Dan Trent
http://www.fzrestoration.com
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