Video: Is this the best-sounding Ferrari ever built?

21st August 2025

Russell Campbell

‘What is the best sounding Ferrari ever built’ is the kind of discussion that may not have an answer. Choosing between the whaling V12 of an Formula 1-engined Ferrari F50 or the screaming flat-plane crank of a 360 Stradale is all but impossible to our ears. They're both fabulous for the same (and some very different) reasons.

So, allow us to muddy the waters of the argument even more with this — the Ferrari 250 GTO. What this long-nosed GT lacks in terms of lightning reactions and sky-high rev limits, it more than makes up for with the sheer mechanical analogue noise of a carburetted V12 doing its best to shoot you up a race track as quickly as is physically possible.

At the 2019 Goodwood Revival, Gary Pearson and Andrew Smith demonstrated exactly why the 250 GTO should be in the conversation when it took a flag-to-flag victory in that year’s Kinrara Trophy.

This hour-long video of the full race allows you to enjoy the range of the GTO's extensive vocal repertoire. From listening to it start from a standstill away from the line, work through the cogs of its tightly stacked gated box, ebbing and flowing as the back wheels lift and drop with the surface of the Motor Circuit, or simply chuntering down the pit lane for the race’s regulatory driver stop. It's almost like you're eavesdropping on a tenor warming up their vocal cords.

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And that sound is backed up by some superb onboard visuals. It's hard to imagine a more evocative view in motoring than the one we get here as our driver looks over the beautiful steering wheel, with its metal spokes and wood-trimmed rim, to the coachworked bonnet that has the kind of curves modern machines can't get close to.

Just when you think the view couldn't get any better, the sun begins to set over West Sussex, flooding the cabin with a bright yellow glow. It's a postcard for classic car motoring if ever we saw one, and you can enjoy similar thrilling racing at the 2025 Revival, where the Kinrara Trophy’s successor, the Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy, will showcase some of the most beautiful cars of the whole weekend battle it out on track.

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