Ferrari 250 GTO

It was on my second trip to the Monterey Auto Week that I got behind the wheel of a 250 GTO. Well over a decade ago now. Long enough ago, in fact, for it merely to have been worth an estimated $10m. And on a public road, the Laureles Grade that connects California’s Carmel Valley with the Laguna Seca Raceway, up and over the hill, ready on arrival to apply a set of roundels so it could tackle that fabled track.

The memory still makes me shiver. It was the sheer tactility of the driving experience that imprinted it in my mind and branded it on my very being. Nothing I have driven before or since scintillated to that degree. Mind you, the road helped. A bewildering series of S-bends that reaches 1200ft at the summit with a grand vista across the scorched valley landscape and a sheer 400ft drop beyond the Armco. As edgy as the car itself.

That shrink-fit body clads vital organs like Lycra: a six-carb V12 punching out 100bhp per litre from 250cc per cylinder via a five-speed gearbox to the tightly located live rear axle. Fantastic figures from engineering that broke no new ground: think 250 Testa Rossa engine and SWB running gear, all tried and tested. Ferrari won races by building strong, consistently reliable cars with plenty of power. Yet it feels so delicate, from the moment you swing out that paper-light door.

Head off like there’s no inertia, nothing to prevent you from picking up speed, just a baritone blare of intake guzzle underpinned by a profoundly thick and chewy exhaust note, a noise that pervades your body while the steering tingles your palms and fingertips, and the suspension teases your arms and hind quarters. It’s an unimpeachably honest car, hiding nothing. Every point of contact hardwires its most intimate behaviour straight to your soul. Even if it hadn’t won so many races, the 250 GTO would be worthy of its legendary status anyway.