Ferrari's 288 GTO was built for a racing series that vanished
Ferrari developed a turbocharged racing version of its 288 GTO, then watched the championship it was aimed at get cancelled before the car ever competed. The road car survived anyway, and it is widely regarded as the first Ferrari supercar, the ancestor of the F40 and everything fast that followed.
By 1983 Enzo Ferrari sensed trouble. Friends and clients told him road-car sales were slipping, squeezed by rivals and by what he called the excessive gentrification of his model range. Formula 1 had shown what turbocharging could do, and Italian tax rules above two litres had already pushed Ferrari toward small turbo engines. Racing powertrain chief Nicola Materazzi promised that 400 horsepower could be reliably drawn from three litres, and Ferrari took him at his word.
The engine size was dictated by arithmetic. Group B rules multiplied a turbo engine's capacity by 1.4, so Ferrari shrank the 308's V8 bore by a millimetre to about 2.85 litres, giving an equivalent just under the four-litre limit. Twin IHI turbochargers from Japan, chosen for quicker response, fed intercoolers and fuel injection. The engine was turned to sit lengthways rather than across the car, making room for the turbos and stretching the wheelbase to 2,450 mm.
Visually it borrowed from two ancestors. The basic shape came from the 308 GTB, but flared wheel arches, bigger spoilers and wider panels covered much larger tyres, and slanted rear-fender vents plus the rear wing echoed the original 250 GTO. Very little of the 308 remained by the end. Every road car left the factory left-hand drive in Rosso Corsa red, apart from one later converted to right-hand drive and dark slate for Brunei's royal family.
Homologation required 200 cars, and Ferrari built 70 more plus a few extras for favoured customers. The Evoluzione racing version was ready, but after deadly crashes Group B's circuit series was suspended at the end of 1986. Driver Michele Alboreto summed the road car up as cattiva, angry, praising how low its engine sat compared with the Testarossa.
Source: Ferrari 288 GTO
