How do I love thee ... let me count the ways!!!
It has incredible racing pedigree
It has exclusivity with 39 cars around
It looks incredible - all the right curves
It sounds glorious - proper V12 sounds
I have seen 2 real GTOs and 1 fake one - they all looked heart stoppingly beautiful. Looks better in the flesh than the pictures if it is even possible. And when the car passed by I thought I was having a heart attack - what an engine note!
The only (and I mean only) de-merit is the gearbox. Innes Ireland, a well known F1 and sports car pilot, mentioned that with the GTO, Ferrari introduced a synchromesh gearbox which coupled with a longish throw of the gear lever, made the gearchanges take longer than the sports car before it - SWB, TdF. Other than that the car was perfect.
The SWB is perhaps a better road and track car but the GTO is better track car -quicker, had better brakes and is faster top end. The GTO was the first use of the Kamm tail by Ferrari where the rounded was lopped off at the rear creating an inbuilt spoiler to give better aero grip to the car.
The other cool thing about the GTO is that its owners tend to exercise the cars on the circuit quite regularly. You would think that with a price of USD 8MM+, the cars would be confined to a musuem or kept for display. But no, you see these cars out on Ferrari Days events - at Laguna, Goodwood and other classic tracks. I think the F355 owners are more finicky and worried about dinging their cars than the GTO owners.
Defines the category Sub-Sub-zero.
I have some old road and track mags with some reviews on the GTO - I will post it up soon.