[pta slowchat] Ferrari 250 GTO

Ask automobile enthusiasts what the greatest name in cars is, and most will answer "Ferrari". No other company can come close to Ferrari's record when it comes building fast, exciting and passionate cars.

If Ferrari makes the greatest cars, what then is the greatest Ferrari? Most followers of the marque would answer "GTO". Amongst a history of cars that defined style, speed and excitement, the GTO is the ultimate.

The Ferrari GTO is a dual purpose car. These are cars that are designed for both the street and race track. In this great tradition, an owner could drive the car to the track, race it, and then drive it home. It is a fact that characteristics that make a car excel on the race track do not make for a good street car and what makes a good street car will make a car uncompetitive on the race track. In the early 1960s, technology was such that succeeding in both areas was possible.

Part of the lure of the GTO is its exclusivity; only 40 were built. In theory at least 100 should have been built, as this was the number required to qualify the car at the time for international sports car racing. In fact the letters "GTO" stand for "Gran Turismo Omologato" which translates into "Grand Touring Homologated" or "approval" for racing. It was either Enzo Ferrari's name or his inscrutable charm that enabled the rule makers to let the technicality slip by.



33 of the GTOs were of the 250 series with a series 1 body style similar to the black car at speed at the top of the page and were built in 1962 and 1963. Three others were equipped with the 1964 body style (above). A number of the early cars, after being damaged in accidents, were rebodied with the later body style. Within a body style there were often variations, including the location of the fuel filler, radiator openings, tail lights, brake cooling ducts and so on. Three more were made with larger 4.0 liter engines and are known as "330 GTOs" and one was built with an LMB body. All were built by Scagletti out of 21 gauge aluminum. Ferrari practice at the time was to label a model with a number corresponding to the cubic centimeter displacement of a single cylinder. Since the GTOs were V12s, multiplying the cylinder displacement by 12 would reveal the displacement. In this case, 12 X 250 = 3,000, or 3.0 liters. 31 of the cars were left hand drive, nine were right hand drive. 23 came from the factory painted "Rosso Cina" (China Red).

It shouldn't take too long to conclude that the most desired Ferrari is also the most expensive. In the early 1990s, when prices for rare and classic cars were at a fevered pitch, an example sold for $15,000,000. Now that sanity(?) has returned to the market, a GTO was recently bid to $7,700,000 at an auction but went unsold. The price for a new GTO was about $23,000 which may seem ludicrous now but was a lot in 1962; so much that it probably was the limiting factor when it came to production quantity.



[ Bericht 2% gewijzigd door seto op 06-09-2004 19:00:32 ]

quote:

Op maandag 6 september 2004 18:53 schreef BoJo het volgende:
Wie ben jij
Maar mooie SC hoor

praat nooit mee in SC ofzo

maar ik wachtte mijn kans af op de 250e

quote:

Op maandag 6 september 2004 18:55 schreef Krush het volgende:
Had dan de GTO '64 genomen

ik heb niet zozeer een specifiek jaartal gekozen, maar voor jou heb ik er een plaatje bij gezet (hoop dat het de goeie is)