What's Wrong With This Picture: Rhetorical Question Edition

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

If there’s anything “wrong” with the Ferrari 599 GTO, it’s that they’re only building 599 of them. Which in turn guarantees that it will end up being more of a “my oil well’s proven reserves are bigger than yours” trophy than the road warrior it’s allegedly supposed to be. Otherwise it’s just 670 HP of 208 MPH, heritage-named goodness. A regular 599 starts at around $335,000 new, provided you’ve already bought a used Fezza and given Luca DiMontezemolo a sensual massage within the last six months… any guesses what the GTO’s premium will run? It’s looking like it could hit $100k, which is mighty healthy for a .35 second improvement in 0-60 time.



Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Sanjay Mehta Sanjay Mehta on Apr 12, 2010

    My biggest issue with it is the name....the "O" in GTO stands for "omologato," and this new 599 GTO is not being built to satisfy any sort of racing homologation.

  • Nino Caruso Nino Caruso on Apr 12, 2010

    As beautiful (for some) and fast as Ferraris are, anyone buying them are suckers. Ferrari treats their customers with disdain routinely charging ridiculous mark-ups over sticker and including all sorts of caveats before letting you buy one. After helping a friend buy a new F430 Spyder last year, I found the entire experience insulting.

  • SCE to AUX "we had an unprecedented number of visits to the online configurator"Nobody paid attention when the name was "Milano", because it was expected. Mission accomplished!
  • Parkave231 Should have changed it to the Polonia!
  • Analoggrotto Junior Soprano lol
  • GrumpyOldMan The "Junior" name was good enough for the German DKW in 1959-1963:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW_Junior
  • Philip I love seeing these stories regarding concepts that I have vague memories of from collector magazines, books, etc (usually by the esteemed Richard Langworth who I credit for most of my car history knowledge!!!). On a tangent here, I remember reading Lee Iacocca's autobiography in the late 1980s, and being impressed, though on a second reading, my older and self realized why Henry Ford II must have found him irritating. He took credit for and boasted about everything successful being his alone, and sidestepped anything that was unsuccessful. Although a very interesting about some of the history of the US car industry from the 1950s through the 1980s, one needs to remind oneself of the subjective recounting in this book. Iacocca mentioned Henry II's motto "Never complain; never explain" which is basically the M.O. of the Royal Family, so few heard his side of the story. I first began to question Iacocca's rationale when he calls himself "The Father of the Mustang". He even said how so many people have taken credit for the Mustang that he would hate to be seen in public with the mother. To me, much of the Mustang's success needs to be credited to the DESIGNER Joe Oros. If the car did not have that iconic appearance, it wouldn't have become an icon. Of course accounting (making it affordable), marketing (identifying and understanding the car's market) and engineering (building a car from a Falcon base to meet the cost and marketing goals) were also instrumental, as well as Iacocca's leadership....but truth be told, I don't give him much credit at all. If he did it all, it would have looked as dowdy as a 1980s K-car. He simply did not grasp car style and design like a Bill Mitchell or John Delorean at GM. Hell, in the same book he claims credit for the Brougham era four-door Thunderbird with landau bars (ugh) and putting a "Rolls-Royce grille" on the Continental Mark III. Interesting ideas, but made the cars look chintzy, old-fashioned and pretentious. Dean Martin found them cool as "Matt Helm" in the late 1960s, but he was already well into middle age by then. It's hard not to laugh at these cartoon vehicles.
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