Black Magic

The 288 GTO started a dynasty of mindbending ferrari hypercars, we get ourselves reacquainted

- Nigel Boothman

Before you drive a Ferrari 288 GTO, it’s likely you’ll ponder various things. Will it be as fierce as everyone says it is? Will it spit me backwards out of a roundabout when all of its 294 forcefully induced kilowatts hit? Will it turn out to be a thinly-disguised track car? Will it feel like a 308 on steroids? All of which makes the actual first impression – that of a lean, striking beauty – a bit of a surprise.

You can understand the nerves. After all, not only is this a Very Expensive Car, but it’s rare too. Just 271 were ever built, and this is probably the only one in black and one of a handful in right-hand drive. So it’s a very special version of an already very special car indeed, one born out of Maranello’s wish to compete at the top of Group B competition. It also sired a line of Ferrari hypercars that persists to this day.

This car’s follow-up, the similarly twin-turbocharged F40, might be heralded as the first hypercar due to its 323km/h full whack, but they’re almost common. To understand why this car is so much more special, we’ve taken a suitably epic car to suitably epic driving roads in Scotland’s Southern Uplands. A fitting location, given the crisp cool air is prime for the 288’s twin turbos. Time to bring a bedroom poster to life.

Twist the key a full 180 degrees, thumb the rubber-covered start nodule and eight angry cylinders bark into life. The pedals, gathered together near the car’s centreline, are pretty firm underfoot. Bold action with the throttle averts a stall and we’re off, finding gears through the gate. It’s already warm, but it still takes an assertive hand to move a rather long linkage quickly. That, and some wheel speed… which, unsurprisingly, is very easy to come by.