Guanajuato

Guanajuato (Spanish pronunciation: [gwanaˈxwato]), officially Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato), is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, are the 32 Federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato. The largest city in the state is León.

It is located in North-Central Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Jalisco to the west, Zacatecas to the northwest, San Luis Potosí to the north, Querétaro to the east and Michoacán to the south. It covers an area of 30,608 km² (11,818 sq mi).

Guanajuato is located between the arid north of the country and the lusher south, and it is geographically part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the Mexican Plateau and the Sierra Madre Oriental. It was initially settled by the Spanish in the 1520s due to mineral deposits found around the now capital city of Guanajuato, but areas such as the Bajío region also became important for agriculture and livestock. Mining and agriculture have been the traditional mainstays of the state's economy, but today, about 30% of the state's GDP is accounted for by industry, which includes metals, automobiles, leather goods, processed foods and more.

Ferrari 288 GTO

The Ferrari GTO (often referred to as Ferrari 288 GTO) is an exotic homologation of the Ferrari 308 GTB produced from 1984 through 1987, designated GT for Gran Turismo and O for Omologato (homologated in Italian).

Background

The Ferrari GTO was built to compete in the new Group B Race series and a minimum of 200 cars were required for homologation. However, after the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto in the 1986 Tour de Corse, the FIA disestablished the class, leaving just the Group A Rally championship. As a result, the 288 GTO never raced and all 272 cars built remained purely road cars.

Some of the 288 GTO's styling features were first displayed on a 308 GTB design exercise by Pininfarina shown at the 1977 Geneva Salon. This included the deep front spoiler, fender flares, rear lip spoiler, front lid radiator cooling louvers and quadruple driving lights.

Engine

The GTO was based on the mid-engine, rear wheel drive 308 GTB (which has a 3.0 litre V8 engine). The "288" refers to the GTO's 2.8 litre V8 engine as it used a de-bored (by 1 mm) V8 with twin IHI turbochargers, intercoolers, and Weber-Marelli fuel injection. The 2855 cc engine capacity was dictated by the FIA's requirement for a Turbocharged engine's capacity to be multiplied by 1.4. This gave the GTO a theoretical engine capacity of 3997 cc, just under the Group B limit of 4.0 litres.

Ferrari 250 GTO

The Ferrari 250 GTO is a racing GT car which was produced by Ferrari from 1962 to 1964 for homologation into the FIA's Group 3 Grand Touring Car category. In May 2012 the 1962 250 GTO made for Stirling Moss became the world's most expensive car in history, selling in a private transaction for $38,115,000 to US communications magnate Craig McCaw. In October 2013, Connecticut-based collector Paul Pappalardo sold chassis number 5111GT to an unnamed buyer for a new record, somewhere within the $38 million range. The numerical part of its name denotes the displacement in cubic centimeters of each cylinder of the engine, whilst GTO stands for "Gran Turismo Omologato",Italian for "Grand Touring Homologated." When new, the GTO cost $18,000 in the United States, and buyers had to be personally approved by Enzo Ferrari and his dealer for North America, Luigi Chinetti.

In total, 39 250 GTOs were manufactured between 1962 and 1964. This includes 33 cars with 1962-63 bodywork (Series I), three cars with 1964 (Series II) bodywork similar to the Ferrari 250 LM and three "330 GTO" specials with a larger engine. Four of the older 1962-1963 (Series I) cars were retrofitted in 1964 with an updated (Series II) body.