1962 Ferrari 330 TRI/LM

Although the line of Testa Rossa Race cars theoretically ended after 1961, there was one more. This was a special car, a one-off hot rod Testa Rossa with a 4.0-liter engine meant for one purpose: So Olivier Gendebien and I could again win the 24 hours of Le Mans.

Initially we didn’t particularly like the car. Olivier and I figured the best odds were with our teammates, Giancalo Baghetti and Ludovico Scarfiotti, in a V8 268 SP, while our usual Le Mans nemesis, the Mexican brothers Ricardo and Pedro Rodriguez, were to drive a Ferrari-entered V6-powered 246 SP.

It turned out the other real threats were the 3.0-liter V12 250 GTOs and the lone 4.0-liter GTO. By 1962, Grand Touring cars competed for the Constructors’ Championship points and had become so potent that a pair of GTOs would finish in second and third place at Le Mans.

For the twenty-four-hour French race, Olivier and I had been given a 330 TRI/LM, an oddity based on an older front-engine chassis lengthened to accept a 4.0-liter V12. While the new rules now had Grand Touring cars scrambling for the Constructors’ title, 4.0-liter cars were allowed to compete for the overall win in the “prototype” class.

While the various mid-engine SPs were the new wave, our car was literally a thing of the past. The chassis was two years old, having begun as a 3.0-liter Testa Rossa with the serial number 0780 that was crashed in practice at the Targa Florio by Cliff Allison. It was rebuilt for that year’s Le Mans, where its gearbox broke, but 0780 was used again in 1961 and with a great deal of success. Although it didn’t finish at the Targa, the car was driven to a second place at Sebring, the 1000-km at the Nurburgring and again at Le Mans, finishing the year with a win at Pescara.

When we got the car, however, it was no longer 0780, but numbered 0808, and it had been stretched to a wheelbase of 95.2 inches instead of the usual 93.0 for a 3.0-liter Testa Rossa. Stuffed in that extra length was a six-carburetor version of the big-block V12, and while it produced 390 bhp at 7500 rpm, it had only a single camshaft per head. We would have preferred the Bellentani twin-cam version.

Incidentally, I didn’t know all of this detailed history of the 330 until years later. When I was racing, I never noticed which car had which serial number and cared little as to what subsequently happened to the car. Journalists such as Denis Jenkinson would often come up and say, “I see you’re not in the same car as last week.” My usual thought was, “I’m not?” All we drivers cared about was that the new car was faster than the other guy’s car and that it wouldn’t break.

The 330 TRI/LM’s new bodywork was a combination of the old Testa Rossa shape with the new double nostril nose and the cutoff tail-with-a-spoiler used on the mid-engine cars. Behind the cockpit was an airfoil, while ahead of us was a full wraparound windscreen that blended into side windows.

Tall windscreens were part of the regulations, of course, whereas I would have preferred a small adjustable deflector, one just big enough to keep my head from being rattled by the wind. Remember that in a long-distance event even a windshield can be a constant and aggravating annoyance as it becomes more and more impossible to see through. The reflected light from the cars following at night - even at a great distance and made worse by dirt on the inside of your own-windscreen - makes your pupils shut down to maybe f16, while you desperately need f5.6 or larger. (Sorry, but the photographer in me occasionally sneaks out...)

In previous years the distortion in these big plastic windscreens was terrible and perhaps because I complained so much, the powers-that-be saw to it that a glass inset - it looked like the rear window from a Humber Super Snipe - was fitted in the windshield with a three- to four-inch plastic rim around it. The result was ugly and wasn’t included in the car’s restoration, but the glass worked.

Seeing the 330 TRI/LM after it was beautifully restored by George Coste at Pierre Bardinon’s famous Mas du Closs collection in central France, it looked smaller than it did in 1962. With the perspective of years, its shape seemed much nicer, and the big car’s lines looked even better, flowing yet tough, the graceful curves only interrupted when necessary by air scoops, a bonnet handle or a leather strap. Think of it as the rounded looks-good-to-the-eye shape of the 1950s ending at the scientific cutoff tail of the 1960s.

Although the 330 was something of a brute in concept, it was not a brutish car to drive. It was damn fast and it helped me break Mike Hawthorn’s Le Mans lap record, set in 1957, the last time 4.0-liter Ferrari sports car raced at the Sarthe circuit. The independent A-arm suspension front and rear made this a decent handling, well balanced car.

What’s more, the 330 TRI/LM suffered none of the earlier aerodynamic problems of some Ferraris. And it didn’t exhibit that schizophrenic nature of other racecars, which would be nice on the tight slow parts of the track and yet get nasty on the fast bits, such as the section before the old White House turn. Without those strange nose or tail liftings of previous TRs, the 330 was almost a pleasant car to drive.

There was, however, one major problem. Right from the first practice session the clutch would slip when we really got the engine near the point of greatest torque. As we’d accelerate away from White House, holding the power at the critical rpm while turning the car (which was adding to the load on the engine), the slippage began. We knew that the only answer was to treat the car as gently as possible and that the moment the revs started to rise out of proportion to the degree that the car was accelerating, we would have to sense it and shift. That often meant we were a gear higher than we cared to be at certain places at the track, but we could live with that.

The unspoken thought between us, however was that the car just wouldn’t last.

Olivier took the start in 1962, but it was a hot, humid day and he began to suffer from the heat in the same way I had the year before. Although he led the first lap, we were obviously in for our annual duel with the Rodriguez brothers, and that’s just what happened.

Being a semi-factory entry of Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing team, the Mexican pair was under the partial control of the Ferrari team. They’d rush every year and drive very hard, leaving us to the natural assumption they’d never last the distance. And yet there was always the nagging thought that maybe our pace was too slow and they really were within the limits of the car. Our concerns were probably more neurotic than anything, but that didn’t keep them from being a very real threat at the time.

Luckily, our assessment of the Rodriguez situation was correct again in the 1962, and when they retired after 175 laps with transmission problems, Olivier and I picked up an instant four-lap lead on the next car, a Ferrari GTO. When the 330 TRI/LM was still running at noon I was astounded. As we neared four p.m., our lead had increased to forty-one miles and I relished the joy of such a comfortable lead. This lovely day was my third victory at Le Mans, Olivier’s forth and, as it turned out, the day the great Belgian driver retired from racing.

After Le Mans, the unique 330 was sold to Chinetti, who shipped it to the U.S. The airfoil was removed and Pedro Rodriguez had his chance at the car, winning the Bridgehampton double 400 in the September and taking a second at Mosport a week later. Masten Gregory also drove the car in 1962, finishing fourth in that year’s Nassau Trophy race. Rodriguez was back in the car in 1963 at Sebring, where he finished third, paired with Graham Hill.

At Le Mans, 1963, Rodriguez co-drove with Roger Penske and the 330 TRI/LM again proved its speed as Pedro was the fastest qualifier for the twenty-four-hour classic. Just after midnight, the 4.0-liter V-12 engine blew, sending Penske into the trees.

The crumpled 330 TRI/LM was sent back to Modena, where it ended up with a Fantuzzi coupe body. Chinetti shipped it back to the U.S. and sold it to Hisashi Okada, who drove it on a regular basis for almost a decade in and around Manhattan, the engine compartment protected by common padlocks.

In 1974, the 330 TRI/LM was acquired by Pierre Bardinon, who is arguably the world’s greatest Ferrari enthusiast having built his own marvelous circuit, Mas du Clos, to enjoy the cars. He is also one of France’s finest collectors of wine and my visit to his estate include memorable evenings enjoying Haut Brion and Petrus. But that’s another story.

Anyway, Pierre got 0808 through a trade with Okada that included a 250 LM the New Yorker then proceeded to drive as regularly on city streets as he had the 330... possibly making him the world’s second greatest Ferrari enthusiast.

Pierre had 0808 restored to its original condition, again re-bodied by Fantuzzi. The great machine remained at Mas du Clos until August 2002 when it was sold at the RM auction held on the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races/Pebble Beach weekend. The price? An amazing $6.5 million, including commissions.

I must admit a special liking for this car that couldn’t possibly have lasted twenty-four hours but did... a fitting postscript to that most enduring of all Ferraris, the 250 Testa Rossa.

Thanks to M. Bardinon, this car was also one of my most enjoyable drives up Goodwood’s “hill” at Lord March’s Festival of Speed a few years ago, and I was even faster than the P2 and P3 Ferraris.

Here’s the odd thing. The clutch seemed to slip again, but after all these years, all the miles it was driven, the 330 TRI/LM never lost its clutch. I wonder what that slipping was?