Posted in Classic cars, Exotic Cars, Ferrari 250 GTO, Ferrari 250 LM, History, Italian cars, Videos, YouTube on April 2nd, 2007
In October last year I wrote of the Ferrari 250 GTO, the classic GT car that sets the standard for all the others. At the time, I was unaware of YouTube but have been digging around and found several clips that enable us to experience the GTO more immediately.
Listen to the sound of twelve cylinders working in sweet harmony in these clips, the throaty voice of six twin-choke Weber carburetors, the awe-struck voices of the onlookers. It may be a forty year old design now but it still reigns supreme.
Tuning a 250 GTO with a little road test afterwards.
Just a GTO – it’s enough!
And this is what it sounds like in its natural home, the track.
And here’s an interesting little clip:
The Ferrari 250 LM, the mid-engined car that replaced the 250 GTO. Almost as desirable…
Posted in Automobiles, Bizzarini, Car designers, Cars, Exotic Cars, Ferrari 250 GTO, Scaglietti, Supercars on October 9th, 2006
Time to look at my favorite dream car – the Ferrari 250 GTO. I may do several posts on this one as it is, to my eyes, the most beautiful car ever made. And I am not alone in this assessment – for decades this car has been the most desirable of all classic cars, as reflected in its current going price of around $6 million. In 1991, one was sold for $15 million.
A development of the earlier 250 GT SWB, the 250 GTO was designed from the outset for racing and used a 3.0 liter V12 engine. Only 39 were made, considerably short of the required homologation requirement of 100, but it was allowed to race anyway. It won the World GT Championship in 1962, 1963 and 1964, which certainly argues for its effectiveness as a racer.
But it was its looks that made it so desirable. Perfect in proportion, partly thanks to its being one of the last competitive front-engined GT racers, nothing about it is overdone or out of place. The design was largely the work of Bizzarini and Scaglietti but others worked on it too after Bizzarini fell out with Enzo Ferrari and was fired. In a way, it is fitting that no one designer can lay claim to it, it being such a perfect expression of the supremacy of Italian design at the time.
But enough of my prattle – just feast your eyes on the most gorgeous of all dream cars and we can talk about details in some other post.
