FERRARI 275 LM. Only 32 examples were built, but despite this number being 18 less than required, fr

Ferrari had little time for the 275LM. Its intended '64 GT car was homologated by the Italian authorities only to be shelved by the CSI on a technicality. Running as a make-weight prototype, it won the 1965 Le Mans race by accident. Thereafter, only David Piper had time for the outmoded machine. John Allen asked Piper what he saw in it.

By 1968, when the CSI's new rules for sports car racing were introduced, the Ferrari 275LM was struggling to keep its head above water in international events. Its competition debut had been made way back in 1964, but, unlike the GT40, which made its first race appearance only three months after the LM, the LM's development had been minimal, and Ferrari had ex-pended little effort on keeping it competi-tive. Only 32 examples were built, but despite this number being 18 less than required, from 1966 the car was homologated as a sports car. In minor events it proved for some years to be quite competi-tive, but in major events it was hard pressed to better its old rival the GT40, and its front-line career included only one really signifi-cant win - in 1965 at Le Mans, the circuit for which it had beeen named. Victory there was obtained only after the works Ferrari P2s and the Ford GTs had driven each other into the ground. As a tool for an enthusiastic private en-trant, the 250LM (this colloquial title was something of a misnomer, for all but the first example were fitted from new with the 275 engine) still provided an interesting con-tender for overall victory in national and non-championship international races. The history of the LM at Le Mans began in 1964, when two cars were entered; the following year, the tally was five, sufficient to garner the first two places for the marque. Only one ran there in 1966, but it retired when a head gasket blew. By 1967 the number of LMs at the start was precisely zero, and the type's Le Mans history would almost certainly have come to a halt there and then had not the CSI decided, with effect from the start of the next season, to ban all the big-engined prototypes. With their LMs suddenly made more competi-tive, the privateers flocked to Le Mans in 1968, and four of Ferrari's old warhorses found their way to the startline for the 36th Grand Prix d'Endurance. Out of 53 qualifiers, the four LMs were surprisingly closely grouped, occupying 27th, 28th, 29th and 32nd places on the grid. David Piper's pea-green car, which he shared with Dickie Attwood, was 28th, with a time of 4m 02.0s, a long way behind the best Group 4 qualifier, the Rodriguez/Bian-chi GT40, which clocked 3m39.8seconds, for fourth spot. Piper's car was unquestionably the most advanced LM at the event. Its chassis number, 8165, gives it away as being the final 250LM built, being delivered to Scu-deria Filipinetti in early 1966, and making only one race appearance - at the Nur-burgring - with that team. By 1967 most owners of LMs had given up the struggle to keep their cars competitive, and had sold them to make way for somethinig newer; Piper's attitude was that the 250LM could be made to work, given the right amount of well-directed effort; he bought 8165 from Filipinetti, and added various non-standard features to the ones it already possessed. Effectively, Piper had been at the forefront of 250LM development, and he more than anyone was responsible for the car being as competitive as it was. Much of Piper's development work con-cerned wheel and tyre improvements, for the mid-sixties saw the American tyre companies becoming involved, producing wide slick tyres that transformed motor racing. Appendix C regulations allowed the fitting of replacement wider wheels on a car, because the slicks could not be used on wire wheels, which were likely to break up under the cornering forces generated. Ini-tially, both the GT40 and the 250LM used Borrani wires and Dunlop tyres, but it soon became totally impractical to race these cars on Dunlop rubber, complete with the inner tubes required because of the nature of wire wheels.

Piper had a contract with Dunlop, which initially worked well. However, eventually the stage was reached where, even if the LM qualified in pole position for, say, a race at Brands Hatch and led for a couple of laps, it would eventually go more and more slowly and be passed by almost everybody. In the hope of getting out from under the Dunlop contract, Piper contacted Dunlop's Dick Jeffries, who agreed that if Piper could prove to Dunlop's technicians Alex Maskell and Rick Barlow that the tyres were not competitive, Dunlop would release Piper from his contract. A visit to Brands Hatch followed, and Piper showed the Dunlop technicians that their tyres were no match for the latest American offerings. Dunlop was as good as its word, and Piper was released from his contract, turning instead to Firestone rubber. The new tyres, which were tubeless so as to reduce unsprung weight, had to be run on wider rims, but as for obtaining any the Ferrari factory was less than helpful; the LM had been homologated on 6-inch front wheels and 7.5-inch rears, and Ferrari maintained that if bigger wheels and slicks were put onto the car, the gearbox would break. It rarely did. One requirement connected with new wheel and tyre combinations was that the car's track had to be kept the same as homologated, so any outboard increase in wheel width had to be matched by an equivalent increase inboard. This was something of a problem, for there was not much room to widen the wheels towards the centre of the car, without having them touch the rear springs. Piper designed his own wheels for the LM, and had patterns made in Modena, for the wheels to be cast by ATS. At the front they were 10 inches wide, and at the rear, 14.5 inches for the dry weather versions, 12.5 inches for the wet. On the first occasion the new wheels were used, at Silverstone, the LM went through scrutineering without problem, but when the GT4Os were scrutineered, they were not so fortunate. John Wyer had provided new wheels for the GT4Os but had ne-glected to ensure that the track remained unchanged; most of the extra width had gone outwards, where it was accommo-dated in flared wheel arches. After scruti-neering, John Wyer and John Eason-Gi-bson, the Secretary of the BRDC, went to see Piper, to request that he refrain from protesting the GT4Os' illegal wheels - on the grounds that if he did, there would be hardly anyone left in the race. Piper was decidedly unhappy about the whole affair, pointing out that on a fraction of JW's budget Piper had managed to get it right, and had gone to considerable lengths to ensure that his wheels were legal. Being irate can help to get the adrenalin flowing, and it was a very irate David Piper who strapped himself into the LM to take the start of that particular event. His anger was such that it enabled him to lead the race from start to finish, and resist all attempts by theoretically superior cars to get past. Piper had many plans for 8165; despite it being a mere 3.3-litres pitted against the 4.7-litres of the Fords, the LM could hold its own against most of the GT40s, and really it was only the likes of Denny Hulme and Paul Hawkins who provided serious oppo-sition for Piper's green LM. However, as 1967 progressed, Piper formulated plans which he intended would make the LM unbeatable; the key was to be supercharg-ing. Existing rules at that time permitted cars to have their engines enlarged up to the maximum of the category in which a car was homologated; in the LM's case, this was five-litres, and even with the super-charger's equivalence co-efficient applied, the 3.3-litre engine still came out as nomi-nally below 5-litres. Piper obtained the necessary super-charger, which was to be belt-driven from the front of the engine, and set about col-lecting the necessary parts, such as special low-compression pistons. Then came Le Mans 1967, and in its wake the CSI's con-troversial decision which altered so pro-foundly the whole face of sports-car racing. The supercharged 250LM would not have fitted into any category under the new regu-lations, and so, reluctantly, the project was shelved. The CSI had much to answer for. So it was that the LM which Piper brought to Le Mans in 1968 was much closer to factory specification than it might have been. However, there were still quite a few ways in which it differed from the norm, the most obvious ones being in respect to bodywork. A feature of most of Piper's cars is detach-able front bodywork. Mid-engined Ferraris of the Sixties had fixed front bodywork, with a lift-out panel in the centre of the nose, to give access to fluid reservoirs, etc. The removable nose was intended especially for Le Mans, mainly in case of accident, as it is obviously much more convenient to remove and replace a piece of savaged bodywork than it is to try to repair it in situ. Apart from that advantage, the new, fibre-glass, panel was both smoother and lighter than the aluminium original, and did away with the subframes needed for the lift-out panel. Fibreglass was chosen for the mate-rial because it is easier and cheaper to work with, and new panels can be made much faster. The tail and doors were also in fibreglass, all this being possible because the LM had been homologated with fibre-glass specified as one of the bodywork materials. The Piper 250LM was fitted with the stan-dard Le Mans gear set, being of two avail-able (the other, the Targa Florio set, had four close, low, ratios plus a long fifth de-signed for the Piccolo Madonie's long straight). Ratios and CWPs were rarely changed on LMs, as it was usually consid-ered sufficient for the drop gears, at the back of the gearbox, to be changed to suit the requirements of a particular circuit. When the LM was originally homologated, it had Dunlop solid-disc brakes, and the homologation was never updated to allow the use of ventilated discs (this again shows Ferrari's lack of interest in the car), so in the area of braking the car was always at a disadvantage compared with its newer rivals.

Preparing a car for Le Mans has changed a lot in the last twenty years, and the basic approach is now the exact opposite of what it used to be. While nowadays a car will be totally stripped and rebuilt, often with brand-new parts, between the final practice ses-sion and the race, in 1968 the policy was that if it ran all right in practice, it didn't get touched. One thing which has not changed is the building in of safety factors. Piper's 250LM had taps on the fuel pressure lines, so that if the gauge leaked it could be turned off. There was extra back-up in the shape of additional petrol pumps, a second bat-tery, and switches so that changes from one to the other could be made, to allow a sick car to limp back to the pits. At the back of the car, an additional pair of rear-lights was installed. These were fitted at the lower edge of the bodywork, tucked well under and forward of the rearmost part, to give them extra protection in the event of a rear-end shunt. A reserve fuel system was a must, and had to contain at least fuel for one complete lap of the 8.5-mile circuit. Also carried on board were a shovel and some stout netting, to enable a bogged-down car to be extricated from the sand .

Conventional mid Sixties rear suspension with compact fabricated upright - the 275LM was a no-nonsense car that a privateer could run without logistical problems at Mulsanne corner; a complete tool kit was carried, plus assorted bits of tubing, wire and so on, together with a spare wheel, jack and wheelbrace. Piper's LM had received a total engine rebuild prior to the Le Mans race. CSI regulations demanded that most parts of the engine be inspected by them to confirm their compliance with the rules of the day, then be stamped before being incorporated into the engine; pistons, heads, rods, all had to be officially stamped when the en-gine was being assembled at the factory. The motor was in superb condition, and gave all the power that was expected of it. Then, in practice, the dramas began. During the first night's practice sessions Piper was motoring flat out down the Mul-sanne straight when suddenly the engine note changed. He immediately slowed, and brought the LM into the pits for the situation to be investigated. The problem lay with one of the screws which held the trumpet on top of the front carburettor; nowadays the car has them drilled and wired up, but that was not the case back in 1968. The screw had come out, dropped down into the inlet tract, been sucked in to the engine, then got itself punched up into the cylinder head. There was no alternative but to return to base, about 20km from the circuit, pull the head off, clean up the piston and the com-bustion chamber and then put the whole thing back together again. It was a great pity that happened, because disturbing the engine which had proven so sweet un-doubtedly took the edge off it. At least, the engine trouble did not recur during the race, which was held in the damp, misty, chilly conditions of late Sep-tember. The only significant problem which arose was electrical, and concerned the voltage regulators. The car been fitted with transistorised Prestolite voltage regulators, and it is thought that the diodes must have failed. Whatever the exact cause of the problem, the symptoms were clear enough: the 45ampere-hour alternator was boiling the water out of the battery and causing it to distort. Fortunately, it was at least still charging, for had it failed to do that then the car would undoubtedly have been forced to retire. Regulations forbade the battery being changed, so something had to be done to protect the two batteries carried on the car. There wasn't the time to keep stopping to add distilled water, so a solution had to be found which would permit the car to con-tinue with the minimum number of stops. Consequently, as dawn broke and cars' lights began to be switched off, the old LM was still circulating happily, quartz-halogen lights ablaze, these absorbing as much as possible of the excess current. Because the car had two batteries, the drivers kept on switching from one battery to the other, using a gas-filled changeover switch which allows this to be done whilst the batteries are in use, without blowing the diodes in the alternator. Apart from the electrical problem, the car ran sweetly, and gave no other cause for concern. The weather was so wet that year that towards the end of the race the instru-ments were like fishbowls; the fuel pressure gauge, the fuel level gauge and the oil temperaturer gauge actually filled up with water, which the drivers could see swilling around inside the gauges! Piper's 250LM was the only one of its type to finish at Le Mans in 1968, doing so in seventh place overall, second in Group Four to the winning Gulf Ford GT40. Apart from the remarkable result in 1965, it was the type's best placing at Le Mans.

Factory fresh, a 250LM sits in the workshops of British importer Maranaello Concessionaires.