The Fascinating History of the 1964 Ferrari 250 LM

Ferrari’s front-engines 259GT Models had cut a broad swathe through endurance racing for around a decade, but the winds of change were starting to whistle around Maranello by the early 1960s.

In a bid to remain competitive, Ferrari realised its engines would have to move behind the driver. It had already seen success with its mid-engined Formula 1 cars, and looked to develop the concept with the 250P. The new race car found immediate success in the World Sportscar Championship’s newly created prototype class.

The 250LM was unveiled at the 1963 Paris Motor Show and was essentially a coupé version of the 250P to allow the car to enter the Group 3 GT class as a production car. However, the FIA demanded that 100 be built and because Ferrari had barely built more than a third of that figure, it was refused entry. Being forced to run in the prototype class mattered little; the 250LM simply carried on the success of the earlier cars, taking victory at the 1965 Le Mans 24 Hours with Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory at the wheel.

This particular car, chassis no. 5909, has lived a varied life, which I learned about when I saw it at Concours of Elegance 2023. Supplied to Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team in 1964, its first race, with Rindt and Umberto Maglioli pairing up for the 1964 Nürburgring 1000km, ended in retirement – as did its second, the Le Mans 24 Hours in the same year. David Piper and Rindt didn’t make it around the first lap: the Brit was behind the wheel when an oil pipe burst, leaving a trail through the Esses right up to Tertre Rouge.

The car finally came good at the Reims 12 Hour, with John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini securing a solid second place.

The 250LM was then sold to Robert Grossman, a resident of New York who repainted the car silver metallic with a blue/white/red stripe. He raced it extensively over the next couple of years, notching up several class victories with either Richard Holquist or himself behind the wheel.

Grossman would sell the car in 1965, to William M Sheaffer, who had it repainted gold metallic. The car changed hands regularly in the late 1960s, and was for a time in the possession of song-writing politician Sonny Bono.

Before heading to Japan in the early 1980s, the car found its way back to Europe in 1978, via a Swiss owner.

Changing hands once more, the 250LM returned to the USA in 2004, and has been part of the Steven Read collection ever since. It was on display at Concours of Elegance in the paint scheme from its Reims 12 Hours race with Surtees and Bandini.