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BY 1964, TIMES WERE CHANGING.
FERRARI OF ITALY WAS A MINNOW,
A TINY BOUTIQUE MANUFACTURER,
COMPARED TO FORD OF AMERICA.
In the winter of 1963-64 Ferrari reviewed its options. Larger V12 engines
of 3.3 and 4-litres capacity were developed for improved versions of
the Champion rear-engined 250P Spiders. It was plain that a GTO replacement
would require enhanced power and torque to combat the new
Cobra-Ford V8s, and that better aerodynamics could also help. The idea
emerged that a new rear-engined Gran Turismo could simply be achieved
by roofing-in the open-cockpit 250P, and delivering competitive performance
against the muscular V8 Cobras by adopting the newly-enlarged
3.3-litre V12 engine – the ‘275’ unit – in place of the 3-litre ‘250’.
To qualify as an FIA homologated Gran Turismo, a minimum 100 units
were required. Even though Ferrari would only build 39 of the shapely
250GTOs overall, The Old Man had achieved FIA acceptance by claiming
they were merely a variant of his old-established 3-litre 250GT line,
founded way back in the 1950s. The ever-acquiescent FIA had accepted
the notion without protest.
By 1964, however, times were changing. Ferrari of Italy was a minnow,
a tiny boutique manufacturer, compared to Ford of America. And when
the technical commission of the FIA found itself asked to accept the new
roofed-in, rear-engined Ferrari 250LM as a Gran Turismo ‘production’ car
they shocked The Old Man by refusing to do so. They would not accept
that it was a development of what had gone before, nor that sufficient
250LMs were in production to warrant such acceptance. So Ferrari’s rebodied,
front-engined – and still only 3-litre – 250GTO/64s found themselves
left to fight alone for the 1964 GT World Championship, while the
would-be GT Ferrari 250LM Berlinettas were accepted only as sports-prototypes,
to race against their open-cockpit works team sisters – the latest
275P and 330P Spiders – and the futuristic new Ford GTs.
While Maranello rang to Mr Ferrari’s noisy condemnation of his former
friends at the FIA and – worse – within the national Automobile Club Italiana,
who refused to help his case for the 250LM, many existing customers
– mainly GTO operators - paid their money and bought the new cars.
The first prototype was a true 250LM with just a 3-litre V12 engine, but
all subsequent examples used the larger 3.3-litre unit as ‘275’LMs. The
factory insisted on the lesser designation, ‘250LM’, in a brazenly hopeless
attempt to support the fiction that the new car was simply a rear-engined
evolution of the GTs which had preceded it.
The new model’s welded tubular-steel Tipo 577 chassis was built by
Vaccari of Modena, owing much to the open-cockpit 250P but stiffened
in the mid-ship sill sections. The bodywork was designed by Pininfarina
and hand-crafted in aluminium sheet by Scaglietti of Modena. When
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launched at the October 1963 Paris Salon, the first prototype chassis ‘5149
LM’ created a sensation. Customers were led by British Ferrari importer
Colonel Ronnie Hoare, for his Maranello Concessionaires team; by American
importer Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART); and by
Belgian importer Jacques Swaters’ Ecurie Francorchamps.
The customer drivers’ first impressions of the roofed-in racer were unforgettable.
Most of them were accustomed to the front-engined 250GTs
and GTOs. Now, as they settled into the new car’s claustrophobic, little
cockpit not only did they seem cramped close to the centreline, with the
big chassis sill box between their outboard hip and the flimsy aluminium
door, but also right amongst the action – with a fabulous, uninterrupted
view of the road ahead. They could see hardly anything of the car’s nose
as it shelved downward from the windscreen base. And glancing in the
external mirror provided a great view of…the engine-bay air scoop on
the car’s rear hip.
THE NEW 250LM WAS SOMETHING
OF A SENSITIVE FLOWER, PRONE TO
FAILURE IF MISHANDLED, AND
NORMALLY OUT-GUNNED BY ITS
REGULATION SPORTS-PROTOTYPE
OPPOSITION. BUT IT WOULD EMERGE
WITH GREAT HONOUR.
Once on the move the 250LM immediately felt like a purebred racer,
unmistakably rear-engined, but stable, strong. After very few laps, the
confined cockpit would heat up, sometimes quite unbearably, while absolutely
ringing to the raucous din of that V12 engine immediately behind
the driver’s shoulders. Hot water and oil was piped through the chassis
tubes between rear-mounted engine and front-mounted radiators, thus
passing to-and-fro alongside the cockpit. The 250LM brakes caused early
doubts, seldom seeming either reliable or adequate. And the tiny multiplate
clutch between engine and transaxle unit would become another
Achilles heel, requiring sensitive care, and proving vulnerable if abused.
So the new 250LM was something of a sensitive flower, prone to failure if
mishandled, and normally out-gunned by its regulation sports-prototype
opposition. But it would emerge with great honour…
The first prototype 250LM ran in the Sebring 12-Hours race in Florida
on March 21. But co-driven by Tom O’Brien/Charlie Kolb, it caught fire after
30 laps and burned out. The Spa 500kms on May 17 saw front-engined
250GTO/64s finish 1-2-3, with earlier-style 250GTOs fourth and sixth. New
250LMs failed in the Nurburgring 1,000kms on May 31, and on June 22 in
the Le Mans 24-Hours, the Belgian 250LM of Pierre Dumay/Gerald Langlois
van Ophem placed only 16th.