Famous five

To understand where the F80's going, first we must meet its bloodline. You might have heard of them...

- WORDS JASON BARLOW PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN WYCHERLEY

Ferrari hypercars appear approximately once a decade. Which means approximately once a decade the TG hive mind turns to the cars that went before, and we swirl through the spacetime continuum like a lo-fi special effect back to 1984. It's when the 288 GTO landed, the car that fired the starting gun on the whole hypercar shebang.

It's the one I clock first sitting outside the recently restored fire station at Dunsfold, which must say something given the company it's keeping today. On the face of it an elongated 308 GTB, the GTO (Ferrari never calls it 288) somehow transcends its origins to become the sort of thing a little kid would draw when asked to imagine a fast car. It's a primal force with swoopy front wings, big NACA ducts, and a sublime stance. It's also beautiful in a way that many hypercars aren't.

Then the eye is drawn to the F40 next to it, the car that capitalised on both the GTO's unexpected commercial success and the turbo mania that gripped the 1980s. Everyone wants one of these, it seems, including Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris, and rumours are rife the next Ferrari SP car will be an F40 homage. This is as menacing a Ferrari as there's ever been, more so than the F50 that followed it, a Ferrari which is definitely having a moment. A manual gearbox and nat-asp V12 will do that.

Then again, the Enzo suddenly looks like The One, as it closes in on its 25th birthday and the smart money starts to get seriously interested. Funny how these things go in cycles. It also seems premature to be admitting the LaFerrari to this pantheon, but not even a Ferrari hypercar can outrun time. These aren't just five great Ferraris, they're five of the greatest cars ever made. Here's the lowdown on each of them.

288 GTO 1984

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