Ferrari 599 GTO Review

The GTO badge had appeared on two Ferraris before, the 250 GTO of 1962 and the 288 GTO of 1984, and both were built to satisfy racing rules. The 599 GTO was not. It was the road-legal version of the 599XX, a track-only development of the 599 GTB Fiorano, announced in April 2010 and shown publicly at the Beijing motor show. Ferrari called it its fastest road car yet and claimed a Fiorano lap of 1:24, a second quicker than the Enzo. Production was limited to 599, about 125 of them for the United States.

It kept the GTB's front-mounted 6.0 liter V12 but took the 599XX's exhaust and gearbox programming, and it makes 661 hp at 8,250 rpm and 457 lb-ft at 6,500 rpm, with 60 millisecond shifts from the six-speed F1 gearbox. New springs, a stiffer rear anti-roll bar, a very direct steering ratio and second-generation magnetorheological dampers working with the latest F1-Trac sharpened the chassis. Aerodynamic changes carried over from the 599XX, including a front spoiler with a separate lower wing, new sills, a double-curve diffuser and discs outside the brakes that Ferrari calls wheel doughnuts, produce 144 kg of downforce at 124 mph. Ferrari quotes 3.35 seconds to 62 mph and more than 208 mph. evo found far more front-end grip than in the GTB and a chassis that punishes clumsy inputs, with a firm but not uncomfortable ride and brakes that are hard to modulate at low speed, and called it much, much more competent than a GTB.

It is still a front-engined two-seater with a usable trunk, but it is loud and firm, and its consumables are priced to match: carbon-ceramic brakes, a single-clutch gearbox and 315-section rear tires. The EPA rated it at 12 mpg combined. It listed at about $410,000 in America and £299,280 in Britain. The market has since multiplied that: Bonhams sold a 2,915-mile car for $907,200 in Miami in 2024, RM Sotheby's got $2.04 million for a 110-mile car at Monterey in August 2025, and a 104-mile yellow car from the Bachman collection made $3.96 million at Mecum's Kissimmee auction in January 2026.

Its category marks are held down by thirst, servicing costs and a cabin trimmed for weight in Alcantara and carbon fiber, not by anything the car does on the road or the track. It narrowed the gap between Ferrari's V12 grand tourers and its mid-engined specials, and the lightened V12 berlinettas that followed, the F12tdf and 812 Competizione, took the same route.