"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
om...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Bill McKee" wrote in message
...
Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
even after you translate it into English. d8-)

Grand Tourisimo wan't it?

That's the "GT." What's the "O"? The "O" is the hard part. d8-)

I knew the GT part, didn't know the Omologato part. Accredited seems to
be what that word
means in Italian.

And now you can insert the correct answer below.

Wes

No, no correction. You got it right. In English it's "homologated," and
accredited is a good synonym. Specifically, it means that the car was made
in sufficient quantities, usually 500 but for GTs at the time of the
original Ferrari GTO, 50, that it qualifies as a production car in that
class.

GTs in those days were exotics, made in small quantities, so Ferrari only
had to make 50 and get the production run certified and approved by the FIA,
which is (or was) the international racing sanctioning body.

For a few years, when road racing was almost a big deal in the US (thanks to
Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Scarab and Chaparral), Pontiac copped a legendary
reference to the Ferrari GTO. It was silly but they should have had the
decency to explain what it means. In high school, I could stump all of the
motorheads with that one. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress