Ferrari lovers take note: Ferrari 288 GTO to be auctioned in Monterey

11 August, 2016

 

One of the best Ferrari sports cars ever produced — the Ferrari GTO — was a 2.8-litre twin-turbo V8 400hp gem, based on a steel tube-frame chassis dripping in carbon-fibre panels. Desirable yes, and now for sale. Mecum Auctions in Monterey have an 11,000km example for sale during their August 18–20 auction period, with optioned air conditioning, stereo, and power windows! Sound like the car for you? Of course it does, who wouldn’t want one — however, you’ll need up to US$3 million.

It seems pricey, but if you’ve got the money it would be a fantastic investment. Just five years ago, a similar example sold for US$650K. This example features certification from Ferrari’s in-house certifier and restorer, known as the Ferrari Classiche, to prove its authenticity. 

Now, all I have to do is check in between my couch cushions for the required moolah to purchase this ’80s bad boy! 

Images: Mecum Auctions

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.