With the sale of road cars declining in the early-1980s, Enzo Ferrari concluded that his company had strayed too far from its competition roots.

Ferrari seized the opportunity to reintroduce cutting edge engineering through the development and manufacture of a flagship supercar: the 288 GTO.

If the revival of the “GTO” moniker wasn’t enough of a statement of intent, chief engineer Nicola Materazzi drove home the point, hailing the new machine as the model that “truly meant the rebirth of the ‘real’ Ferrari”.

A masterpiece of engineering, the 288 GTO had at its heart a 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V-8 engine, which was mid-mounted in a steel-tube chassis that had been developed beyond recognition from the 308.

Clothed in competition-derived carbon fibre and Kevlar composite, the 288 GTO was arguably one of Pininfarina’s greatest designs; a perfect blend of aggression and elegance that paid homage to Ferrari’s unrivalled competition history.

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