Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Who Do You Think You Are? - The Ferrari GTO bloodline

In Forza Motorsport 4, there are three Ferrari cars that bear the name GTO. GTO usually means Grand Touring Omologation, which is meant to be used for racing purposes but sometimes, it isn't. Let's start at the car that where the Ferrari GTO all began...

Ferrari 250 GTO at the Top Gear Studio

It all starts with the Ferrari 250 GTO, which remains the world's most valuable and quite possibly the world's most beautiful car Ferrari made. Built in 1962, the 250 GTO was made to compete in GT racing. It is fitted with a 3-liter V12 engine from the 250 Testa Rossa, producing 300HP of power, and it was mated with a 5-speed manual transmission. In history books, the engine was installed by Giotto Bizzarrini while Sergio Scaglietti was responsible for the bodywork. When Giotto Bizzarrini and other Ferrari engineers were sacked by Enzo Ferrari, he enlisted Mauro Forghieri to further develop the body.

It made its first debut appearance at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1962, driven by Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien. Although that they're driving GT-class cars instead of Testa Rossa's, they worked hard and achieve 2nd overall behind the Testa Rossa.

Now, the 250 GTO became a rarity for classic car collectors. Here at Forza Motorsport 4, it is heralded as the most expensive car in the game, costing 10,000,000 CR, so you may need to play hard to get that amount. If you belong to a club and if your fellow club member shared his 250 GTO, well it's fine but it works on online races.



Next, GTO number 2 is the Ferrari 288 GTO. The Ferrari was also made for racing - only for the rules to change at the last minute, leaving it with nowhere to race.

Ferrari GTO at the Top Gear Studio

What music would The Stig be listening
on the GTO?

Originally, it was made to compete in the Group B Race series and 200 cars are needed for homologation. As this one entered, the race was abandoned, in fact, the 288 GTO never raced at all and all 272 examples produced remained as purely road-legal cars.

The Ferrari GTO comes with a 2855cc engine that produces 395HP of power and 366lb-ft of torque. This engine was positioned longitudinally to make room for the twin turbos and intercoolers. With this, the 0-60 time for the 288 GTO was reached to the upper 4-second range and it has the top speed of 189mph, making this the first road-going Ferrari to reach 186mph! That's unbelievably staggering!


And now, it's this. The third GTO...

Ferrari 599 GTO at the Top Gear studio

The Italian Job...less

The Ferrari 599 GTO is the quietened-down, softer version...of the 599XX. Unlike the 599XX, it's heavier, slightly less power, and thanks to sports tires, a lot less grippy but it's still a great car. When this car was featured on Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson's having a problem cornering with the 599 GTO with the traction control off at a wet condition. When The Stig drove this one, it set a lap time of 1:19.8 seconds, making it faster than the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 and the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 but it's slower than the Ferrari 458. Oh yeah, this was also featured on Jeremy Clarkson's DVD titled "Clarkson: The Italian Job". Just so when you think that the Ferrari 599 GTO is a lot faster than the 458 Italia, wait till you'll hear the word from the PA and he'll say that the 458 Italia is faster than the 599 GTO. If you were driving the 599 GTO and if you were overtaken by the 458, catching up could be a lot difficult, and with traction control off, you would be having a hard time chasing the 458 until you'll spin out for complete surrender. That's what happened on Jeremy Clarkson's...

Anyway, it uses the improved version of the V12 engine lifted from the Ferrari Enzo. It produces 670PS of power and 620Nm of torque. 0-60 time is 3.6 seconds and flat-out, it can do 325kph of power. When it was launched in 2010, it became the most powerful Ferrari ever made, with only 599 units made. Despite the naming, the 599 GTO wasn't design for homologation. All that matters is that this is just the pumped-up version of the car Chef Gordon Ramsay would drive...



Which of these three Ferrari GTO cars best suits you?

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