Ferrari built 272 examples of the real thing. Tamiya built this one…
Review and photos by Marshall Buck
To my eye, the 1984-86 Ferrari 288 GTO is one of the most beautiful modern sports car designs ever penned. Though it was based on another great design, the new for ’84 GTO was once again perfection from the house of Pininfarina.
I am more of vintage car guy; my main interest is sports and classic cars from the 1930’s through about 1970, but this one rings every bell for me, as does the beautiful 1:12 scale model.
The 288 GTO was designed and built specifically to compete in a new Group B racing series. At that time the requirements for this particular series were that a manufacturer must produce a minimum of 200 cars for homologation.
“Best laid plans…….” Unfortunately the new Group B series was abandoned before it ever got on the track since only Ferrari and Porsche built cars for the series. None of the 272 cars which Ferrari built were ever raced; they all remained road cars…… very fast and scary road cars at that. Most were sold in Europe as they were not certified for sale in the USA, though there were many that were imported and federalized by specialists such as Amerispec.
Scary fast…… The 288 had the power to back up its looks. The heart in each one was a mid mounted V-8 with twin IHI turbochargers. Top speed in Europe was an eye watering 189 mph. Here in the US the top end was reduced to somewhere around a mere 175 mph.
