This Ferrari 288 GTO could break £2.5million

One of the 270-odd homologation specials from the mid ‘80s is again heading to auction and attention will be focused on whether it can sustain its rapid rise. Bonhams has a guide price of £2-2.5 million on the 1985 car; in 2007 Bonhams sold a 288 GTO – actually Michele Alboreto’s own car – for £368,000 including the premium.

The fact that Alboreto had a 288 GTO – as did other F1 drivers at the time including Rene Arnoux and Niki Lauda – is no surprise of course. The car was conceived as a racing version of the 308 GTB, and although history records it never did race, the 288 GTO did always make a peachy road car, 189mph fast and beautiful to boot – a worthy follow-up to the 250 Gran Turismo Omologato of two decades previous.

What made it so appealing? Well, just look at it. The 308 GTB may be a beauty but this is savage beauty from Pininfarina, the new body, with its GTO design cues, matched by a complete reworking of chassis and drivetrain in order to make a racing car out of the berlinetta. 

Formula 1 technology of the time provided the blueprint for the transformation: a Kevlar and Nomex bulkhead between the driver and engine, now mounted longitudinally rather than transversely; Kevlar and carbon-fibre in the body; revised aerodynamics with the model’s signature spoilers and flared guards; and twin IHI turbos for the 2,855cc quad cam V8, boosting power to 400bhp. It wasn’t the first turbocharged Ferrari (there was the Italy-only 208 GTB before it) but it was certainly the greatest, and an hors d’oeuvre for the F40 a few years later.

The 288 GTO in the Bonhams Bond Street Sale in London on 2 December is one of the 20 cars that were supplied new to the UK. The left-drive car, Rosso Corsa and with the optional electric windows and air-conditioning, has had five owners – none of them F1 drivers as far as we know – and covered 14,000 miles. It is matching numbers and Ferrari Classiche certified. 

The world gasped in 1984 when the 288 GTO first came out, with its astonishing price tag of £73,500, a lot more even than a Rolls of the day. Will there be equal gasps in London when the hammer falls on December 2^nd?