1961 – the ferrari 250 GTO. almost as nice as raquel’s thoroughbred Arabian horse. now it doesn’t take too long to figure out that the most desired ferrari turns out to also be the most expensive. in the early 1990s, when prices for rare and classic cars were at a fevered pitch, a specimen sold for $15,000,000. now that “sanity” has returned to the market, a GTO was recently bid to just under $8million at an auction and went unsold!

part of the lure of the GTO is its exclusivity; only 39 were built. in theory at least 100 should have been built, as this was the number required to qualify the car at the time for international sports car racing. In fact the letters “GTO” stand for “gran turismo omologato” which translates into “your mother wears pajamas” or ore likely “grand touring homologated” or “approval” for racing. it was either enzo ferrari’s name, his inscrutable charm, or the head of raquel zimmermann’s horse, that enabled the rule makers to let the technicality slip by.

the price for a new GTO at the time of launch was about $23,000 (now go buy some more stock) which may seem ludicrous now but was a lot in 1962; so much that it probably was the limiting factor when it came to production quantity. by dd