ferrari_chris
Definiative answers:
GTR = "Grand Touring Racing" (turismo is Japanese for touring)
It is acually Italian for Touring... and they coined the term 'Grand Turismo'
During the 50's, a lot of manufactuers would design a car specifically for the Le Mans 24 hour event, these cars were given the specification 'Le Mans', one famouse and wonderful example being the Ferrari GTO 250 'Le Mans'...
... all you have with 'LM' is a lazy way of typing 'Le Mans'... hence LM means Le Mans.
GTO means Grand Turismo Omogulated, which means 500 of the cars had to be available for sale to the public (not that this ever happened much!). But GTO races were originally for high end production cars, so the munufacters bent the rules a bit. In the 60's adding GTO at the end of a model was found to be a money spinner... so it became a fashion, you had a car that was going to be raced by someone... somewhere. FTO was only ever used by Mitzubishi, it sounded good!
A GT car (or Grad Turismo) was any car made for long distance driving with lots of power, it was first coined in the 1920's when the 'Grand Tour' was a way of life for some people with money. It was considered to be fashionable to tour Europe and other places... even then, the car manufacturers catered to a buying public. GT cars were normally small two seaters, with space for luggage.. either as a large boot or with a rack, and a very light chasis and good power to weight ratio, and an engine that could climb the hills and passes of Europe. Pretty soon, as in the case of all types of car, some decided to race them, and a GT series spang from that. Again, the munufacturers realized putting the 'GT' designation on a car made it sound sporty, and thus was a selling point. In their defence, most of them were damned sporty and fast anyway!
The Ford GT40, (40 because it stood 40 inches high) is a classic example. Ford produced 500 of them, and then crated most them up and left them. They could be purchased for the price of a small moon, but they were for sale! Hence it was eligable to enter GTO spec races. That car has now become a legend... and a it did the job it was intended to do, it gave Ferrari a good hiding on the track. It was never intended to be a production car.
