Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer LM: 24 hours to hell and back

By Damien Smith

| 31 Jul 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer LM: 24 hours to hell and back

There’s little point in sugar-coating it: as a competition car, the 512 Berlinetta Boxer LM has to be considered a lacklustre footnote in the long and otherwise largely illustrious on-track history of Ferrari – at least in terms of its imprint in the record books.

Bar a single class victory at Le Mans towards the end of the event’s most patchwork and uncompetitive era, it was never a convincing proposition.

The comparisons with Porsche and its concurrently dominant 935s are pointless, because Ferrari’s commitment to sports-car racing from the mid-1970s into the ’80s was half-hearted, to put it mildly.

Le Mans had ceased to matter much in Maranello.

A Ferrari 365GT4 BB finished 16th at Le Mans in 1977 and 1978, in the hands of François Migault and Lucien Guitteny

Yet to completely write off the model would also be a mistake. A big one.

Competition cars are judged purely on the results that were secured during their period life: did they win or did they lose?

But as the years stretch on and those cars shift into the historic racing sphere, the criteria by which they are perceived become smudged.

Nearly half a century after its conception, who cares that the 512BB LM was a bit-part player?

This Frankenstein curio looks – and, crucially, sounds – out of this world, the further we march away from the 1970s.

And the model is now a far more competitive proposition in historic motorsport (see below).

Throughout its competition lifespan, steroidal muscle added bulk to the 512BB’s original, achingly elegant, mid-engined supermodel form, to a point where the Botox made it barely recognisable.

Sure, it was no longer pretty, and looked light-years away from P4 perfection.

But that bluff nose, elongated tail and Formula One-style rear wing leave us transfixed.

Butchered into something that shares more in common with a same-period Special Saloon than a thoroughbred Ferrari, the 512BB LM retains a macho aura that is very much of its time.

If it had a scent, it would stink of Brut 33.

Like so much in Ferrari folklore, it was Luigi Chinetti who lit the competition spark.

By the mid-1970s, the man who put Ferrari on the map by scoring its first Le Mans win in 1949, then opened up the US market to a largely ungrateful Enzo’s benefit, made the best of what he had to work with on track.

Ferrari withdrew from top-tier sports-racing at the tail of 1973, as the axis of Luca di Montezemolo, Niki Lauda and Mauro Forghieri focused on a much-needed F1 revival.

That left the car manufacturer with then the most Le Mans wins on the endurance racing fringes.

Between 1975 and 1977, Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART) raced heavily modified 365GT4 BBs with modest results.

The hastily patched-up Ferrari 512BB LM driven by O’Rourke, Phillips and Down, and owned by Nick Mason, heads to 23rd at Le Mans in 1980

At Le Mans in 1976, for the first time since Ferrari began making cars, not one carrying the Prancing Horse featured at the 24 Hours.

In 1977, with Le Mans rules modified for US IMSA cars to bolster a dwindling entry, Ferrari made a nominal return.

One of the 365GT4 BBs entered by Chinetti and driven by François Migault and Lucien Guitteny finished 16th.

Since the 512BB’s launch at the 1976 Paris show, Chinetti had been lobbying for a works-prepared racing version with the 365GT4 BB’s 4.4-litre flat-12 uprated to the full-fat 5 litres.

Finally, his persistence paid off.

For 1978, what latterly became known as the Series 1 512BB LM was created by Ferrari’s Assistenza Clienti department, with modifications including wider arches, a roof-mounted aerofoil and the most striking addendum that sums up just how Heath Robinson this project really was: a large anhedral rear wing from a 312T2 F1 car.

Power was increased to around 440bhp, with weight shaved to approximately 1200kg.

Four cars took the start at Le Mans in 1978, with two entered by Charles Pozzi and one each from Écurie Francorchamps and NART.

None of them finished, although NART’s old 365, driven once again by Migault and Guitteny, repeated its 16th-place finish from the previous year, for fourth in the IMSA GTX division. Slim pickings.

Undeterred, Ferrari’s privateers pressed on.

The BB LM evolved late in ’78 after development from engineers Giuseppe Girotti and Gaetano Florini.

The result was considered officially a product of the Gestione Sportiva racing division.

The next internally devised Ferrari destined for high-level sports-car racing would be the 499P – Ferrari’s 2023, ’24 and 2025 triple Le Mans winner.

By now the racing car no longer resembled the roadgoing BB, with the production-based bodywork replaced by a new design developed by Pininfarina.

It was 16in longer, with the tail lengthened to the maximum allowed by Group 5 regulations, and the pop-up headlights were swapped for fixed, integrated units.

The NART Ferrari 512BB LM in the pits at Le Mans

Under the surface, the key development was an electronic fuel-injection system in place of the flat-12’s carburettors, with power increased to around 470bhp.

Ferrari clearly had an eye on Porsche’s turbocharged 935 – another extravagant silhouette of an increasingly distant road car.

Nine of the 1979 512BB LMs were made to take on the 935 hordes, with a further 16 built, in tweaked Series 3 form, between 1980 and ’82.

The fuel-injected 512 made an inauspicious debut at the 1979 Daytona 24 Hours, with two cars entered by the Pozzi team and one by NART.

Following a blowout for one of its new Michelin radials on the steep banking, the fleet was retired early despite all three running in the top 10.

Interscope’s 935/79, helmed by Hurley Haywood, Danny Ongais and Ted Field, claimed the win, although an ageing 365GTB/4 Daytona at least held up the Ferrari end with an unlikely second place – 49 laps behind the winner! – to claim GTO class honours.

Not everything was better in the past.

The 512BB LMs reappeared for Le Mans, where four took the start: two from Pozzi, one from NART and another via ‘Beurlys’ – the pseudonym of gentleman racer Jean Blaton.

The Belgian was joined by Bernard de Dryver, Nick Faure – who was subsequently more closely associated with Porsche – and Pink Floyd manager Steve O’Rourke.

Their Ferrari was the only one to make the finish, in 12th overall.

Meanwhile, as Group 6 prototypes including the works Porsche 936s wilted, Kremer’s 935 K3 picked up the pieces.

Of greater interest, however, was the presence of Hollywood royalty – Paul Newman – in the Dick Barbour 935/77A that finished second.

The Blaton car returned in 1980 as one of five 512BB LMs to start Le Mans.

Now owned by O’Rourke and his drummer friend/client Nick Mason, it was painted in British Racing Green but run under the moniker Rosso.

During the race, most of the rear bodywork was lost in a tyre blowout, but O’Rourke, sharing with Richard Down and Simon Phillips, at least made the finish with the red rear of the Bellancauto-entered car grafted in place.

The Scuderia Bellancauto 512BB LM wore distinctive, tapered, wind-cheating bodywork for Le Mans in 1981, but the car failed to finish

Nick still owns the car, his wife Annette having driven it a couple of times – and not without incident – up Goodwood’s hill.

“The driving I’ve done is limited, but I’m very fond of it,” he says. “It seems to have almost nothing to do with the road car when you look at it.

“It’s actually a great Le Mans car: not in the same league as a 935, and it looks like a beast, but it’s very driveable – surprisingly so – and fairly robust.

“In 1980 they had a big wallop with it – Steve’s negotiating skills managed to prise the bodywork off the crashed Bellancauto car. A tribute to Bellancauto and gaffer tape, I think!”

Perseverance finally paid off for the plucky privateers at Le Mans in 1981.

Five Series 3 Ferraris lined up, including the last to be sold to Chinetti’s historic NART concern, which closed at the end of ’82.

But it was Pozzi’s plain red, French-crewed BB LM, driven by Claude Ballot-Léna and Jean-Claude Andruet, that achieved the model’s best result, finishing behind the winning Porsche 936 of the dominant Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell, a pair of Rondeaus and a 935-K3, to record fifth overall – and first in IMSA GTX. Success at last.

Among other Series 3 entries was chassis 35529, owned by Rome-based mineral-water magnate Fabrizio Violati, run by his Scuderia Supercar Bellancauto outfit and sporting an even more garishly extreme silhouette.

Former Maserati, Scuderia Centro-Sud and Ferrari mechanic Giulio Borsari worked with famed aeronautical engineer Armando Palanca, of Fiat’s Schneider Trophy flying-boat fame, to improve the car’s aerodynamic efficiency with wide arches, revised intake ducts and a heavily tapered profile.

Dubbed the 512BBB (Berlinetta Bialbero Bellancauto), it looked nothing like any other Ferrari and could only be described politely as ‘Marmite’ in looks. It didn’t finish.

It recently came to auction with RM Sotheby’s in Paris; put up at €2million, it didn’t sell.

As the Group C era at first stuttered then properly caught into life, the 512BB Series 3s continued to plug away.

One running under the moniker of Prancing Horse Farm Racing, with Pierre Dieudonné among its drivers, finished sixth at Le Mans in ’82; others registered starts at Daytona and Sebring as late as 1985.

But even the bellow of its glorious flat-12 couldn’t raise Ferrari from its endurance-racing apathy.

It would take the GT revival of the 1990s and the parallel rebirth of customer prototype racing in the USA to re-engage Ferrari, in the latter case via the glorious 333SP – essentially a Dallara in disguise.

Over the past two decades Ferrari has reconnected with Le Mans in the GT division and finally, in the advent of the Hypercar era, plunged back in with its first true factory assault on the overall win since 1973, adding the 10th, 11th and 12th to its proud tally.

And the 512BB LM? Diverting in looks, it played little more than a cameo.

Images: Getty

The Ferrari 512BB LM in historic motorsport

Onboard Sam Hancock’s Ferrari 512BB LM at the Monza Historic

Overshadowed by Porsche’s 935 in period, the Ferrari 512BB LM sure is maturing well.

For the past 10 years, quick pedaller and historic-car dealer Sam Hancock has been racing one: owner Alexander Rittweger’s ex-Prancing Horse Farm Racing Series 3, which competed at the ’81 and ’82 Daytona 24 Hours, and the ’82 Sebring 12 Hours.

“I absolutely love it,” says Sam. “I didn’t know what to make of it at first. The engine is enormous.

“But what always shocks me – in a good way – is how late you can brake and how much front-end grip there is in tight corners.

“The mechanical grip is incredible, the weight distribution is fantastic and you really struggle to break traction, even out of a tight corner in a low gear.”

Alexander and Sam have raced the car at the Le Mans Classic and in Peter Auto rounds.

“I recall the run from Mulsanne to Indianapolis at night, flat-out,” enthuses Sam.

“You’ve got that incredible sound, a Ferrari badge on the steering wheel, the shaft of the gearlever clicking through the metal gate, flames coming out of the back illuminated in the mirror… I just started chuckling.”

The 512BB LM remains a cult car for connoisseurs, but now has a set-up-honed competitive edge.

“What’s interesting is how often we manage to get up among the front row or two, ahead of most of the prototypes,” says Sam.

“What’s shifted, and has contributed to the value appreciation, is that the 512 was always considered to be inferior to the 935 because it doesn’t have the horsepower and you can’t turn up the wick.

“But apart from the most power-hungry circuits, like Le Mans, we’re generally ahead of the 935s: we’re so much quicker through the corners. It’s hard to find a better car.”

Image: Sam Hancock

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