High cost for Ferrari

Lucky millionaires out there can now upgrade their "basic" Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano to HGTE-spec, by buying a tuning kit which has a starting price of £19,703. You can actually buy a whole (old) Ferrari for that.

Ferrari 288 GTOs Gather At Monterey

Nasty. That’s the first word that springs to mind when I see mention of Ferrari’s 288 GTO. It was a car that grew out of the 300 “series” (the 308 of Magnum PI fame, the 328 & 348) and eventually lead to the wicked F40 …which begat the F50 … which lead to the current King of The Road, the Enzo. From these comparatively modest beginnings came a car that looked better than its original base, out-performed anything else the factory was making at the time and became highly collectable.

And a whole slew of them gather together at this year’s Monterey Historics.

To call a car a GTO is throwing down a mechanical gauntlet, especially if the company doing so is Ferrari. Saying that your car is the measure of one of the greatest sports racers of all time is a helluva thing to say. The 288 GTO was just such a boast, and although it never turned a wheel in anger (at least sanctioned by the factory), it WAS intended to race and win. Back in the mid-80s, there was growing manufacturer fascination with a group of race cars, rally cars actually, known collectively as Group B. It went from homologated specials like Renault R5 Turbos to things like Peugeot 205s and Lancia Delta S4s and pretty soon people like Porsche (with there 959) and Ferrari (with the 288 GTO) were interested.

But before all of this could get properly going, a bunch of spectators were killed at the Rally Portugal, and then Henri Toivonen turned his Delta S4 into a crumpled flaming ball in Tour de Corse and the FIA said “Basta!”, and that was that.

The 959 was modified to race (and win) in the Dakar, and the 288 GTO went on to be one hell of road car, although a handful to drive. This was back in the days before “mash-it-and-point-it” traction control, and from the friends I have that own 288s, these things are a real handful, especially in the wet. Although somewhat mitigated, there is, apparently, still turbo lag in there, and the car can go from 200+ horses to 500+ in the blink of an eye … say mid corner … at night … in the rain.

Ferrari's latest the 458 has 570bhp

There are two things that Italy does better than anyone else: outrageous politicians and sports cars.

And while old Silvio has been up to his tricks, Ferrari has been busy building a fabulous new mid-engined sports car to replace the F430, itself a bit of a stunner.

The new car is called the 458 Italia. From the first bit of the name we can deduce that it's powered by a 4.5-litre eight-cylinder engine.

The new engine is direct-injection and has a whopping 570bhp at a screaming 9,000rpm.

It's more powerful than the F430 engine yet it is cleaner and more economical, not that economy is going to bother an owner that much.

What is important is driving slowly past nightclubs and attracting attention by blipping the throttle.

Many car companies claim to learn lots from racing and include the lessons in their road cars. Often it's just marketing talk but with Ferrari it's believable.

The Italia is full of hi-tech gizmos. For starters it has a seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox that changes gear faster than a blink, an electronically controlled differential and something called F1-Trac - a traction-control system that maximises acceleration out of corners without the risk of you flying off into a field.

The major controls are mounted on the steering wheel and by major we don't mean the stereo controls. Ferrari gives you a host of buttons to press that change the traction-control settings, throttle response and lots more. Just like on Raikkonen's F1 Ferrari racer.