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Fantastic Four: A Brief History of the Ferrari F150's Illustrious Ancestors

By Andrew Tsaousis

  Ferrari GTO 1984

Legend
has it that Enzo Ferrari built road cars in order to fund his true
passion, which was the Scuderia racing team. It is fitting then that the
first of the four “specials” was built to homologate a racing car.

In
the early 1980s, Ferrari decided to compete in the World Rally
championship against Porsche’s 959. Group B, the series’ top class,
rules stipulated that a minimum of 200 road-legal cars had to be built
for a car to be homologated. Thus, it was simply named the GTO, for Gran
Turismo Omologato, “homologated” in Italian (the 288 is -unofficially-
added to distinguish it from the 250 GTO).

Based
on the 308 GTB, it was the first turbocharged road-going Ferrari ever
and the first in which the V8 was mounted longitudinally instead of
transversely.

Said V8 breathed
through a pair of IHI turbochargers and had a capacity of 2,855 cc,
hence the 288 moniker (2.8 liters, 8 cylinders). This was dictated by
Group B rules that allowed for a maximum of 4.0 liters in
normally-aspirated engines and multiplied force-fed ones’ capacity by
1.4. Output was 400HP, making it the first Ferrari to exceed 300 km/h
(189 mph).

A series of fatal
accidents, the most publicized of which was that of Henri Toivonen and
his co-driver Sergio Cresto in a Lancia S4, FIA decided Group B racers
had become too dangerous. Group B “specials” were banned leaving just
Group A.

The latter’s rules mandated that 2,500 production cars had to be made each year so the GTO never got to race and ironically, in its early years the new class was dominated by Lancia…

Its
production run was very short, just 272 cars built from 1984-1985 and
five Evoluzione units with improved aerodynamics and output. As
Pininfarina designer Lorenzo Fioravanti put it, the 288 GTO was “the
mother” of the “special” that would follow.

 



 

 

Ferrari F40 1987

Nowadays,
three years is the time when carmakers usually give their models a
mid-life facelift. A quarter of a century ago, that’s the time
separating Ferrari’s two range toppers, the GTO and its successor – and
the shortest ever since…

Ferrari’s
engineers built on the experience gained from the 288 GTO and the
Evoluzione, with the F40 sporting a V8 with twin IHI turbochargers.
Capacity was up to 2.9 liters, with maximum output climbing to 471HP.

Along
with a weight of just 1,100 kg (2,425 pounds) thanks to the extensive
use of carbon fiber and Kevlar, and the much improved aerodynamics of
its Pininfarina-designed, wedge-shaped bodywork, the F40 became the
first production car to break the 200 mph (320 km/h) barrier.

It
was also the antithesis of the 959 in every respect: the latter had a
very sophisticated four-wheel drive system and a luxurious interior. The
Ferrari was rear-wheel drive and its only concession to civility was
air-conditioning. There were no audio systems, no sound deadening, not
even carpets or proper door handles and the first 50 cars had Lexan
sliding “windows”…

The F40 was the
last Ferrari ever to be developed before Enzo’s death in 1988. It
remained in production until 1992, sold 1,315 units, all of them in red,
and today is considered by many to be the greatest supercar of all
times.

 







Ferrari F50 1995

Unlike
the vaunted F40, the F50 that was introduced in 1995 to coincide with
Ferrari’s 50th anniversary wasn’t liked that much. Maybe that’s because
the powers-that-be at Maranello decided to adopt a different recipe for
it.

First of all, it was a barchetta,
i.e. it had a removable hardtop roof. Then, it was its design that
eschewed the F40’s wonderful simplicity for a bodywork shaped as much by
aerodynamics as by stylists, and probably the fact that Ferrari had
decided to stop playing the top speed game, resulting in a v-max that
was 6 mph (8 km/h) less than its predecessor.

Still,
the F50 was the first Ferrari that was directly linked to Formula 1:
not only did it sport a tub made entirely out of carbon fiber and an
electronically-controlled push-rod suspension, but its 4.7-liter
naturally aspirated V12 engine was directly derived from the actual unit
used in the 1992 F92A F1 cars driven by Jean Alesi, Ivan Capelli and
Nicola Larini and was an integral part of the chassis.

Even
though, unlike the F40, you could have your F50 in a choice of five
colors (red, dark red, yellow, silver or black), only 349 were produced
until 1997, when production stopped.

 







Ferrari Enzo 2002

Ferrari
pushed on with the Formula 1 connection even more with the successor to
the F50, a car that was deemed exceptional enough to be named after
Enzo Ferrari himself.

Production was
initially scheduled to stop at 349 units that were already sold before
the first car rolled off the Maranello assembly line. A further 50 units
were added, bringing the total to 399, all built in 2003, although
another one was built in 2004 and donated to Vatican for charity,
bringing the total to a round 400.

The
Enzo featured a carbon fiber body, a semi-automatic paddle shift
six-speed gearbox and carbon ceramic brakes. It was powered by a
6.0-liter V12 that revved upped to 8,000 rpm and produced 651HP.

Ferrari’s
current head of design Flavio Manzoni said that stylists don’t like
large wings, like those used in the F40 and F50, both from an aesthetic
and a functional point of view. Thus, the Enzo featured moving aero
devices to achieve downforce that, in addition, was superior to that of
its forebears.

Although Ferrari and
Maserati are both owned by Fiat and the former manufactures engines for
the latter, their model lines are not related.

Interestingly
that rule was broken by the Enzo, which “donated” its chassis, engine
and gearbox to its stablemate for the creation of the
homologation-special MC12 that was manufactured in 50 units and allowed
Maserati to compete in the FIA GT Championship.

 

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