Throughout its long and illustrious history, Ferrari has produced some of the most beautiful cars ever, but to this writer’s eye, none of the brand’s current models have a truly timeless design, especially compared to the 288 GTO.

Fittingly, South Africa designer Matthew Parsons has decided to bring the 288 GTO into the current day and as you may agree, the finished result is pretty phenomenal.

In creating the modern-day 288 GTO, Parsons took design inspiration from many of its major design cues and mixed them together with the styling of current Ferrari models. The result is both retro and modern, aggressive yet refined and classy.

Looking at the car from the front, one immediately notices the boxy front end with a flat hood and headlights sitting in line with the bumper, unlike current Ferrari models where the lights are situated on either side of the hood.

From the side, the 288 GTO inspiration is obvious, particularly with the squared roofline and air intake just behind the doors.

The rear is perhaps our favorite element of the car. It appears to be a mishmash of the 288 GTO, the 812 Superfast and the limited-run J50 and portrays a wide, low and exceptionally mean stance. If you were driving a Lamborghini, you certainly wouldn’t want to come up to the rear of this beast at the traffic lights.

Despite how good it looks, we can’t imagine Ferrari ever producing such a car. Instead, we’ll just have to put it into our pile of retro sports cars that the world would love to see, alongside a modern Peugeot 205 GTI and Nissan’s IDx concept.

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