Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa

Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa at a glance

"Testa Rossa" is Italian for "red head", a reference to the bright red cam covers of the engine. Ferrari had used the name on the four-cylinder 500 TR, and the 250 TR carried the tradition to the V12. The car was built for one job: endurance racing under the 1958 rules which limited sports prototypes to 3.0 litres.

The older 1cars text gave "about 40 cars"; current registers count 33 or 34, depending on how rebuilt chassis are counted. Ferrari's broader story is told in the history of Ferrari.

From prototype 0666TR to the TRI61

Ferrari started work in 1957, once it was clear that the 1958 season would cap engine size at 3 litres. Andrea Fraschetti helped develop the first prototype but was killed in a test accident in 1957. Carlo Chiti then led the project. The prototype, chassis 0666TR, used a 290 MM chassis and a Scaglietti body similar to the 500 TR's, and it made its debut at the 1957 Nürburgring 1000 km.

Customer cars replaced the 500 TRC for private teams, and all of them had the 1958-style body. The works team developed the car every season, so almost every chassis differs in detail.

Spaceframe chassis and pontoon-fender bodywork

The 250 TR uses a tubular steel spaceframe related to the 500 TR's, with a wheelbase 10 cm longer at 2,350 mm. Front suspension is independent on all cars. Customer cars kept a live rear axle, while works cars tried both live and de Dion axles until the TRI60 brought independent rear suspension in 1960.

The 1958 Scaglietti body is the best-known shape. Its "pontoon" front fenders are cut away behind the front wheels to let air reach the drum brakes, which overheated in long races. The shape looked dramatic but caused drag and instability at high speed. For 1959 Pinin Farina drew a cleaner body without pontoons, built by Fantuzzi. The 1961 TRI61 added a split "sharknose" nose, a Kamm tail and a rear deflector that made the car more stable.

The cockpit is simple: a three-spoke wooden wheel, a large tachometer reading to 8,000 rpm, a full-width windscreen and a pad on the driver's side against the transmission tunnel. Customer cars had left-hand drive.

The Tipo 128 Colombo V12

The engine is the Tipo 128 version of Gioachino Colombo's 60-degree V12. Ferrari derived it from the 250 GT road-car engine but fitted six Weber 38 DCN twin-choke carburettors instead of the three used on the road cars.

The engine was the first Ferrari unit with coil valve springs instead of hairpin springs. With roughly 0.28 kW per kg of dry weight, or 276 kW per tonne, the 250 TR had a strong power-to-weight ratio for a 3-litre car of its time. From 1960 the works engines used dry-sump lubrication.

TR58 to TRI61: the variants compared

The 1984 Ferrari Testarossa road car borrowed the name as a tribute, but it is a mid-engined flat-12 grand tourer with no technical link to the racer.

Racing record and legacy

The 250 TR won ten World Sportscar Championship races: Le Mans in 1958, 1960 and 1961; Sebring in 1958, 1959 and 1961; the Targa Florio in 1958; the Buenos Aires 1000 km in 1958 and 1960; and the Pescara 4 Hours in 1961. Ferrari took the constructors' title in 1958, 1960 and 1961. In 1959 the Aston Martin DBR1 beat it to the title.

Its drivers included Phil Hill, Olivier Gendebien, Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn, Luigi Musso, Wolfgang von Trips and Dan Gurney. Gendebien and Hill won Le Mans together in 1958 and 1961. The 250 TR also marked the end of an era: the 1962 Le Mans win by its 4.0-litre derivative was the last for a front-engined car, before mid-engined prototypes took over. Ferrari's earlier sports racers, such as the 750 Monza, and the road-going 250 GT Tour de France show where its engineering came from.

Collecting a 250 TR today: values, provenance and replicas

Genuine 250 TRs rarely come to market. In 2009 chassis 0714TR sold for 9,020,000 euros at RM Sotheby's Maranello auction. In 2011 the prototype 0666TR sold at Gooding & Co.'s Pebble Beach auction for one of the highest prices ever paid for a car at the time, and in 2014 chassis 0704 reportedly changed hands privately for more than twice as much. Ralph Lauren's collection includes a 1958 Scaglietti car (0734TR) and a 1961 TRI61 (0792TR). Only the Ferrari 250 GTO is generally valued higher.

For a buyer, provenance is everything. Many replicas exist, some of them sold as originals, and rebuilt cars have led to disputes in which two cars claim the same chassis number. Any purchase needs factory records, the race history of the chassis and an independent marque expert. More cars of the decade are in the 1950s classics section, the specifications section and the comparison tool cover Ferrari's road cars, and the full range is in the Ferrari catalogue.