A discussion nearly 15 years ago, with Ferrari’s PR guardian, Joanne Marshall, about the price of the Ferrari 599 GTO, neatly sums up the inherent value it represented. 

Priced from £299,280, at the time of its launch in 2010, the 599 Gran Turismo Omologata seemed, I volunteered, to represent good value for money. Not only was it the most the fastest, most powerful road car Ferrari had yet built, it was also limited to just 599 examples, a trick that tends to get collectors’ chequebooks twitching.

Unsurprisingly, she agreed. Then she went one step further, claiming she wasn’t just doing her job and repeating a corporate line: she and nine colleagues at Ferrari had seriously considered putting in £30,000 each, snapping one up and playing the long game.

It’s a shame they didn’t. Adjusted for inflation, that original list price is equivalent to almost £448,000 today. And according to The Classic Valuer, which tracks car auction results around the globe, the average sale price of 599 GTOs sold in the public arena since 2020 has been £567,652. The highest sale yet? A cool £833,599, in August, 2023, achieved by RM Sotheby’s at last year’s Monterey sale.

So the 599 GTO has been on an upward trend in terms of values. And when you look at sale prices over the last two years, it’s clear there’s increasing interest in the front-engined, rear-wheel drive, V12-powered two-seater. That’s probably stating the obvious, given it comes with a prancing horse on the bonnet and was made in limited numbers.

But before anyone drove it, there was a question mark hanging over its right to wear the GTO badge. That all changed after the press and clients got behind the wheel; the 599 GTO is a supercar that delivers a driving experience that is entirely befitting of that Omologato status, despite the fact the GTO badge was originally conceived for road cars primarily designed to race. (Just two, in fact: the 1962 250 GTO and the 1984 288 GTO.)

Really and truly, the 599 GTO had a little bit of hot rod in it. At its heart was a generous helping of Italian metal, a 5999cc V12 derived from the earlier Enzo supercar. It used new materials internally to help it rev freely to dizzying heights, all the way to 8400rpm, and the six-speed F1 paddle-shift gearbox had shorter ratios and faster shift times. Meanwhile, weight-saving work – beyond the 599’s aluminium body – included fastidious details like a hydroformed exhaust (no need for welds), carbon-ceramic brakes, thinner glass, forged wheels, titanium bolts and Sabelt carbon seats – shaving 100kg from the standard 599. It even wore the first of a new generation of high-performance tyre from Michelin called Pilot Super Sport. How time flies. 

There was also all manner of electronic trickery to try to manage the behaviour of a car that was made to be deliberately nervous at the limit by Ferrari’s engineers. To avoid the big, heavy nose ploughing on, they tuned the chassis to be as lively as a cheetah chasing for its prey. 

The result was a car you had to be on top of. If you couldn’t accept that it would be continually edging the tail into play through the twists and turns in the hills around Maranello or when chasing a lap time at Fiorano, it probably wasn’t for you.

With minimal sound insulation materials, the 660bhp V12 at times felt as though it was right alongside your ears. It would gladly rev to 8400rpm all day long, and the noise – oh, the noise. It remains one of the best-sounding cars I’ve been jammy enough to spend time in, a smooth yet potent burble that grows to a howling, angry blare, accompanied by explosions from the exhaust every time you pulled the paddleshift for Ferrari’s F1 transmission and grabbed another gear.

There is something that is so intoxicating about a big front-engined, rear-wheel drive car like the 599. Yet with its responses turned up to 11 and that soundtrack permanently on loud, the GTO took things into another dimension.

It can serve up a wild, visceral experience that is ever-so slightly unhinged and all the more likeable for it in an age when even modern supercars try to mollycoddle the driver to some extent.

Today, it’s not surprising to see that some drivers are switching out of the latest high-end Ferraris and Porsches into 599 GTOs. It is a car capable of making every drive an experience. And as an asset, all the signs are that it would be money well spent.

What a shame, then, that those colleagues at Ferrari never took the plunge and clubbed together to own a piece of a GTO.

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