GTO. Possibly the most sacred acronym in the automotive lexicon, reserved purely for thoroughbreds built for the sole purpose of going racing. Many have used the name in vain - namely for the Mitsubishi 3000GT in the UK and the Pontiac GTO in the States - but a handful of cars can lay claim to being a true Gran Turismo Omologato.
Homologation specials are as old as motorsport itself, but the legend of the three letter moniker began with the stunning Ferrari 250 GTO back in 1962. The version most of us are familiar with is the early Series I cars (like Nick Mason's), though several variants succeeded it including the 250 LM-shaped Series II and a trio of 330 GTOs with larger 4.0-litre engines. The name wouldn’t appear on another Ferrari until 1984, when the company decided to have a stab at Group B racing (not rallying) and so it built a homologation special around the 308 GTB. Sadly, the 288 GTO would never compete as the series never got off the ground, but to all intents and purposes, it was a competition car.
That made Ferrari fans all the more outraged when the 599 GTO, similar to the one we have here, came along in 2010. The problem was that there wasn’t anything ‘Omologato’ about it. The only category the 599 could feasibly fit into was GT1, but the series was on its last legs at the end of the '00s with manufacturers leaving in droves, while the F430 covered the vastly more popular GT2 ranks. However, Ferrari’s reasoning for using its hallowed name is the GTO was a road-going version of the 599 XX, the track-only special its uber-wealthy customers muck about in its exclusive Clienti programme. That obviously didn’t require a road car to be built, so the GTO link is tenuous at best.
Nevertheless, the 599 GTO did pack some of the XX’s hardware. At its heart is a highly-modified 6.0-litre naturally aspirated V12 with an aluminium intake, a new exhaust system and lighter internals for a bump in power from 620hp on the Fiorano to 670hp. The cabin was stripped of most luxuries, the glass thinned and the wheels forged for a gigantic weight saving of nearly 100kg over the base 599. Much of the XX’s technology was lifted too, such as a trio of accelerometers to feed information into its trick adaptive dampers. It may not have been a race car for the road, but had Ferrari decided to homologate the 599 for racing there’s a good chance it would have arrived at the same outcome.
While it received a bit of stick from reviewers - notably a less than stellar verdict from Clarkson who lamented it for its excessive use of computers - that did naff all to put buyers off. One of them included Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay, who bought this example a few years after its original owner took delivery of it. It’s been ‘used sparingly’, says the selling dealer, with just 2,800 miles covered since it rolled out of the showroom 13 years ago - although that’s no great surprise given that Ferrari mechanics supposedly told Clarkson that it’s impossible to drive in the rain.
That just adds to the legend, of course. All V12 Ferraris are special, but the fact that it’s one of just 599 examples built, and allegedly one of two finished in Nero DS with a Giallo racing stripe, does send desirability levels to stratospheric heights. You’ll need to give the vendor a bell for pricing, but expect a premium (low mileage, Jay Kay tax) over the £649,995 asking price of this 10,018-mile car. If the GTO trickery does nothing for you, then take a look at this delicious Blu Tour de France 599 GTB for under six figures. It doesn't seem to have been owned by Mr Jamiroquai, but given how often his name appears on the classifieds you can’t rule it out.
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