288 GTO Competitor?

[Ferrer]

Versions of the 959 did the Paris-Dakar...
Both cars were intended for Group B. Ferrari had some earlier rallye forays with 308/328 models...

And the track racing version, the 961, won the Group B class in Le Mans '87. The F40 and the 959 (961) could have met in the track as well, if Porsche had insisted with it.

Regarding Ferrari's rallying history only the 308 competed, being homologated in Group 3 & 4 from 1975. Then in the early 80's Jean-Claude Andruet and the french importer CH. Pozzi took interest in it and did a pair of seasons in the ERC and some WRC events mixed in, its best result being 2nd overall in the '81 Tour de Corse. Bjorn Waldegaard even drove one in the '83 Sanremo Rally, with out much luck. By then the QV version had been homologated in Group B, but it was no where near as succesful as the other earlier variants. And the definitive cancellation of Group B for 1987 drew to a close Ferrari's rallying efforts.

[nopassn]

The 288 GTO Evoluzione was intended to compete in group B... so, really, the 959 and GTO Evo are competitors...

[LandQuail]

I'm still not convinced old Enzo had any conception whatsoever of what was going on outside the factory gates in the 80s. It'd be hard, in my opinion, to say anything Ferrari did in that decade was a response to anything anybody else was doing.

They built the 288 GTO because it made sense to do so. Ferrari haven't ever really cared if there was or wasn't a race one of their racecars could compete in, and at least once Enzo changed the rules, Captain Kirk-style, to get one of his cars into competition (250 GTO).

When Carrol Shelby dusted the GTOs with what he recently described as an old chassis, a big engine and some hillbilly know-how, Enzo basically lost heart in sports car racing.

I'm rambling, but long story short, Ferrari seemed to do their own thing under Enzo. If one of his designers had brought him a photo of a 959, he probably would have muttered something curt and deeply Italian and ordered the designer fed to the wolves. I don't think the old man gave a **** about what ze Germans were doing, and I don't think anybody at Ferrari gave a **** about anything unless specifically told to do so by Enzo. And all he gave a **** about was making cars with his name all over them, in his way.

[Ferrer]

They built the 288 GTO because it made sense to do so. Ferrari haven't ever really cared if there was or wasn't a race one of their racecars could compete in, and at least once Enzo changed the rules, Captain Kirk-style, to get one of his cars into competition (250 GTO).

This is more or less true, but in fact and if I'm not mistaken it was Porsche who first profited from this "rule" introduced by the FIA which allowed to change the car retaining very few components of the original with the 356B Carrera-Abarth GTL in 1960. Then Ferrari came in 1962 with the 250 GTO and I believe the Shelby Daytona Coupes were also built under this rule.