A 37-year-old Ferrari 288 GTO exceeded expectations by roughly a mission euros when it sold for €3,464,375 in Paris this weekend. It was the single most expensive car sold at the auction that day and possibly the most valuable piece in Marcel Petitjean’s collection.
The 288 GTO (see video) was the second model on the Ferrari GTO lineup after the 250 GTO was revealed. It shared some of the tech with the regular 308, but had an improved chassis and a carbon-Kevlar body designed by Pininfarina.
Ferrari designed the coupe to homologate a racecar, and had to produce at least 200 road-worthy examples to meet the homologation requirements of the time. The 288 GTO Evoluzione racer was completed, but fate prevented it from ever participating in Groupe B races it was created for. The Motorsports Federation decided to shut down the Groupe B permanently due to numerous injuries and casualties.
The road-going 288 GTO had a 2.9-liter twin-turbo V8 under the hood rated at 400 PS (394 hp / 294 kW) and 496 Nm (366 lb-ft) of torque. It needed around 5 seconds for the sprint and kept accelerating until 304 km/h (189 mph), making it one of the world’s fastest road cars of the era.
The sold example had an OEM drivetrain with 9,559 km (5,940 miles) on it. It changed three owners and stayed with the last one for 24 years. The auction holder commented that the sports car may need a round of maintenance after such a long idle period.