OWNING A FERRARI 250 GTO AT 19
Goes from epic to unreal real fast
Stephen Mitchell is a soft-spoken gentleman, a real gentleman, with a passion and love for the legendary Ferrari 250 GTO.
It was in 1963, when Stephen was 14 years old, that the story of his love for the GTO had its beginning, albeit a horrific one. One night he and his father were involved in an accident caused by a drunk driver. Stephen was rushed to hospital where he spent a month in the hospital recovering.
During times of boredom, of which there were many, he read car magazines like Road & Track and Car and Driver. From these magazines he took a love of the ‘history, legend and lore of the people in the scene’, drivers like John Surtees and Graham Hill and the designers and teams who made their achievements possible. ‘Those magazines lit a fire in me that still burns today.’
He saw an ATS GTS, one of the very first sports cars to have a mid-engine layout, on the cover of one of these magazines, and his passion for cars and eventually Ferrari began.
A few years later, he saw his first GTO. It was driving along on the opposite side of the road, and he wanted one, he badly wanted one. Stephen was too young to drive, but he knew the car that he wanted above all others.
The 250 GTO was conceived in 1962 and between then and 1964, only 36 were ever made and with buyers needing to be personally approved by the great Enzo Ferrari himself.
The GTO in the name stands for Gran Turismo Omologato, which is Italian for Cerfitifed Grand Tourer and the 250 is the cubic centimetres of displacement in each of its cylinders.
The engine used was the Tipo 168/62 Comp. 3.0 L V12, with six Weber carburettors, turning out 300 BHP at 7500 RPM. Hardly revolutionary and some might say even a bit conservative, even for the time. But that was never the point. You only need to see the car to understand that.
When they were new, the 250 GTO cost $18,000 in the United States, and if you were an original buyer and had decided to hold onto your car, it would have turned out to be quite the investment, both in terms of money and pleasure.
Years later his mechanic saw a GTO in a car sales display window, Stephen tells him to ring them up and tell them that the car is sold. ‘Don’t ask price, tell them it’s sold.’ It was the very car he had first seen and coveted. It was now his second Ferrari at just nineteen years old.
After doing some engine and exterior work and after patiently running the engine in at 4500 RPM, Stephen took it on to 7500 RPM and the ‘feeling was unbelievable, it’s like it wakes up, the most exhilarating feeling I’d ever had, and I don’t think I’ll ever have again. The experience of a lifetime. Hard put to find that experience in a modern car, and I have driven a lot of Ferraris.’
In those days, of course, there were timing chains instead of belts, which made for a way better sound and you could hear the engine breathing through the six open-throated Weber carbs. Magic.
During that same time – those who could afford to, like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys - actually drove their GTOs around. Nowadays you only see such iconic cars as this on track days of the like. Imagine being a 19-year-old and driving a Ferrari 250 GTO just like any other car? Well, maybe not like any other car, but you get my drift. But that’s Stephen’s point too; the GTO was a dual-purpose car. It was a racing thoroughbred from one of the best stables in the world, but it was also a car that he used to drive to the shops to pick up his bread.
When I put it out on social media that I was going to talk to Stephen about his history with the GTO, in the buzz of excitement, the question that I got asked most often was, ‘Why did he sell the car?’ A question, to be honest, that was uppermost in my mind. And when I put it to him, I loved his answer:
“It was stupidity masking as business expertise.”
Stephen and his father were going to Italy for a month to buy a selection of top-end cars, and he thought that if he sold the GTO, there would always be a time when he could buy it back again.
So, they went to Milan, ‘Beautiful cars and beautiful women’, and bought the cars that they loved and wanted. Stephen sold some and went to live in Paris for a couple of years. But he hadn’t sold the Maseratis that they’d bought quickly enough, and the financial times had changed for him and put things beyond his reach.
After passing through several hands, Stephen’s GTO had found itself in the hands of Ralph Lauren, the boy from the Bronx who made his fortune from his brilliance as a fashion designer and his self-made business empire, Polo. Remember that the GTO cost $18,000 US brand new?
Well, in June 2018, a 1963 250 GTO (chassis 4153GT) was privately sold for $70,000,000 to the founder of WeatherTech.
Did Stephen ever regret selling the car back when he did? Again, I liked his answer: “Here’s the thing, you’ll always have it, the experience of it; it’s something that you will always have.”
Ralph Lauren’s team made modifications to the GTO, which, as Stephen politely and courteously points out, was not something he would have done. “As far as I’m concerned, and this is a very personal opinion, for me, it’s a 10-point replica now. The body, not the chassis or the car.”
A statement of observation more than a criticism of Ralph Lauren.
The 250 GTO wasn’t just magic to drive, but it seemed to create special unforgettable moments like no other car. The most notable would be Stephen’s crossing of paths with Steve McQueen and his own legendary Jaguar XKSS at a set of traffic lights.
“The red light turned to green, but neither of us moved. Then, McQueen pulled forward, and I assumed he was going on his way, but he only pulled forward to get a better look at the GTO and stopped again right in the middle of the intersection.
I stayed put and studied the details of the XKSS, not knowing when I’d ever see one again. Traffic was backed up behind us in both directions, and neither of us cared. Strangely, no one sounded their horn, as if they all understood what was happening. Finally, McQueen flashed that irrepressible smile of his that, in part, made him the star that he was. I smiled back, and he waved, revved the Jag’s DOHC straight-six and took off like a shot. I waved back and took the GTO to 7500 rpm in first gear in pure exhilaration at what had just transpired.”
As Stephen pointed out, Enzo Ferrari was a racing driver and designed his marque accordingly. So there was a personal touch to his cars. The 36 models made of the 250 GTO were made for individual drivers, not churned out corporate style.
All 36 of the 250 GTOs were hand made so, though what was under the hood was the same, each car had features that made each one unique. He tells the tale of having one of a plexiglass windows replaced and the body shop owner telling him that the left-hand window was one inch taller than the right hand one. “Welcome to the world of Italian car design,” Stephen told him.
A world that Stephen is still deeply involved and respected in. He loves beautiful cars, lives, breathes and speaks eloquently about them and for him – and many others – none come more beautiful than the Ferrari 250 GTO.
Listen to the full interview on the Velocita Sit Down Podcast.
Available on all major podcast apps.
You can see Stephen’s films Exigence and The Dearly Departed streaming on Amazon Prime Video.