This stunning supercar was formerly part of the Ralph Lauren collection. It is believed to be the first 288GTO to be sold in the USA and has been cared for lovingly. With only15K kms on the odometer, it has never tracked or abused, it has recent service records, books and tools.
The Ferrari GTO was built to compete in the new Group B Race series and a minimum of 200 cars were required for homologation. However as only Ferrari and Porsche, with their 959, entered, the series was soon abandoned leaving just Group B Rally championship. The Porsche 959 (as the Porsche 961) only raced three times in Group B, but the 288 GTO never raced and all 272 cars built remained purely road cars.
Some of the 288 GTO's styling features were first displayed on a 308 GTB design exercise by Pininfarina shown at the 1977 Geneva Salon. This included the deep front spoiler, fender flares, rear lip spoiler, front lid radiator cooling louvers and quadruple driving lights.
The GTO was based on the mid-engined, rear wheel drive 308 GTB (which has a 3.0 litre V8 engine). The 288 refers to the GTO's 2.8 litre V8 engine as it used a de-bored (by 1 mm) V8 with twin IHI turbochargers, intercoolers, and Weber-Marelli fuel injection. The 2855 cc engine capacity was dictated by the FIA's requirement for a Turbocharged engine's capacity to be multiplied by 1.4. This gave the GTO a theoretical engine capacity of 3997 cc, just under the Group B limit of 4.0 litres.
Unlike the 308's 2926 cc engine, the GTO's 2855 cc engine was mounted longitudinally, using the 308's rear boot space. This was necessary to make room for the twin turbochargers and intercoolers. The racing transmission was mounted to the rear of the longitudinal engine moving the rear differential and wheels aft. As a result the wheelbase was110 mm (4.3 in) longer at 2,450 mm (96 in). The track was also widened to accommodate wider wheels and tires (Goodyear NCT 225/50VR16 tires mounted on 8 x 16" Speedline wheels at the front and 255/50VR16 mounted on 10 x 16" wheels at the rear) to provide increased cornering and braking performance and the ability to apply 400 hp (298 kW) and 366 lb.