By KC Detailing
Ever car detailer has a dream car, something he or she wants to own, but will settle to just touch with a soft cloth. And for many, that’s the Ferrari F40. Some say it’s the best super car ever built, and many more say it’s the best Ferrari. A detailer can’t afford to make these distinctions. To detail an F40 would be a dream come true in itself. But when you’re auto detailing here in Kansas City you often lose sight of where beauties such as the F40 originated. So let’s take a journey from Kansas City to Maranello, Italy, and a journey back in time: to 1986.
Last week we discussed Group B rallying. Though the classification was extremely popular, it also became dangerous, and by 1986, it was already on its way out. Drivers and spectators alike were dying in accidents with startling regularity. Would Kansas City have put up with such tolls? Probably not. Neither could the rest of the world. It was a detail that couldn’t be overlooked. So Group B was
dissolved.
But Ferrari had already begun development of the 288 GTO Evoluzione, a reworking of the successful GTO platform and what was to be the most powerful rally Ferrari ever built. Its 2.8 liter V8 used a pair of turbos, with a combined input of twenty psi, to churn out an unprecedented 530 hp. Another engine variant, this one designed for the track, took that figure all the way up to an unheard of 650.
Sadly, Group B collapsed under the massive bulk of its own liability, and the 288 GT0 Evoluzione project was abandoned. Or was it? One detail that often goes unnoticed is that two of the five examples of the Evoluzione were used as design hacks for Ferrari’s next huge project, the F40, which is clear from the Evoluzione’s radical styling, especially the perforated tail.
Today, only two of the five copies still exist, but the others have been sacrificed for a noble cause. When we look at the gorgeous lines and breathtaking performance of the F40, the auto detailing community have the 288 GTO Evoluzione to thank.
Auto detailing in Kansas City is always an adventure, and though we may or may not ever see an Evoluzione 288, a detailer here will get to work on his or her fair share of Ferraris. And that makes auto detailing more than a job.
The post Ferrari In The Dirt Part 2: Evoluzione appeared first on KC Detailing.
