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If, at a time when toy cars were relevant for boys, a vehicle was deemed worthy by the major miniature car manufacturers to be released as a Corgi Toys, Politoys, Mercury, etc., then that speaks volumes about the vehicle’s popularity. The big players knew (even back then!) how to make boys happy and at the same time make good money. The Ferrari 250 LM, never seen on the road, was worth a miniature to many toy car manufacturers. And not only that, not just an average model. Corgi Toys and Politoys in particular went far beyond their usual capabilities and built real supermodels. The Mercury interpretation is by no means out of the ordinary. But the usual scope for Mercury was set high anyway.

Now we wait for the CMC model. The wait won’t be long. Let’s sweeten the day with a look at the contemporary miniatures, the original, and a few previews of the final samples that CMC provided us with. They call it an “appetizer” because it whets your appetite.

Boys could relate to all kinds of vehicles because they recreated their own traffic environment. In the 1950s and 1960s, children’s bedrooms were a reflection of the “car-oriented city” that is so (rightly!) frowned upon today, and the ornamentation of the (real or fake) Persian rugs represented precisely those traffic arteries. Cars were part of everyday life, often with flashing blue lights on the roof; trucks were part of it; those from the countryside also liked tractors, and everyone loved motorsports. Especially in the 1960s. While the Grand Prix racing cars of the 1950s were technically largely the same as before the war, the 1960s marked several design revolutions. And the biggest of these was probably the mid-engine layout. Hardly a toy car manufacturer was without the legendary Ford GT40! And every kid back then knew that this four-time Le Mans winner (1966 to 1969 in a row) was nothing but Henry Ford’s revenge on Enzo Ferrari for not selling him his factory. Ferrari had been a subscriber to Le Mans victories, and Henry Ford dethroned Enzo Ferrari. Before that, Enzo Ferrari had an absolute winner in his portfolio, the 250 LM, the 1965 Le Mans winner.

The last Ferrari Le Mans winner for 58 years

The road version was only theoretically and very limitedly roadworthy, but the 250 LM was nevertheless the first road-going Ferrari with a mid-engine layout. As the 250 P Berlinetta, it was intended to continue the winning streak of the 250 GTO on the racetrack and was presented as the 250 LM at the 1963 Paris Motor Show. The main distinguishing feature from the racing prototype with its wide roll bar was the fixed roof. The Pininfarina design here was not an end in itself, but rather the stylist’s response to the mid-engine layout. The roof essentially ended behind the seats, and the interior was bordered to the rear by a vertical rear window. The rear fins, which at their base signaled a continuation of the roof to the rear, served an aerodynamic function.

31 production vehicles were built. They differed from the prototype in that they lacked a roof spoiler, had a longer roof, featured more pronounced fins, and other details. The 1965 version had a special feature: door cutouts that extended far into the roof, making entry much easier, even for tall drivers. However, homologation in the GT class failed; by 1965, only a third of the required 100 cars had been built. Enzo Ferrari was unable to convince the FIA that the 250 LM was a “Grand Touring” based on the 250 GT. What he had previously achieved with the 250 GTO failed here due to the outcry from competitors.

Only the first 250 LM had a three-liter engine under the hood and was therefore rightly called the 250. All production cars were powered by the 3.3-liter twelve-cylinder engine of the 275 GTB. According to logical Ferrari nomenclature, they should have been called 275 LM, but Ferrari decided against it. NART (North American Racing Team, the racing team of American Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti) entered the prototype of the 250 LM in the 1964 12 Hours of Sebring. The car caught fire and was totally destroyed. In this race, the AC Cobra/Ford finished fourth to sixth. In 1964, the 250 LM was successful in Reims and won in Kyalami/Johannesburg and the Angolan Grand Prix. The 250 LM celebrated its absolute triumph at the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans, beating the powerful Ford GT 40. But the fourth place of an AC Cobra/Ford was another warning sign for the Scuderia: the battle between the US giant and the sports car manufacturer from Maranello was about to become even more intense.

An interim model was the 275 P 63, which in 1963 ran with the engine of the 250 TR (V12, 2953 cc), and the following year with the V12 with 3285 cc. There were three examples, all with a Spyder body built by Fantuzzi based on a Pininfarina design. Then there was a 250 LM with Porsche trim, really a stopgap measure. At the end of the 1960s, a car with the ominous designation “LM-P” appeared at hillclimbs, obviously related to the Porsche Carrera 6. In reality, this was a 250 LM that had been rebodied after being totaled, using the aluminum body of a Porsche Carrera 6. This car, with the chassis number 5899, passed through several hands and was finally restored to its original condition by British rock singer Rod Stewart.

With the 370 hp four-liter V12 from the 400 Superamerica, the 250 P mutated into the 330 P at the end of 1963. Otherwise, the 250 P and 330 P were identical, remaining a unique car. Graham Hill won the Tourist Trophy in it, and the car finished first at the Canadian Grand Prix, the 1000-kilometer race in Montlhéry near Paris, and the Bettoia Trophy in Monza. Four 275/330 P’64s were produced in 1964. It had a 3967 cc engine producing 370 to 390 hp, and minor bodywork modifications distinguished it from the 250 P and 330 P. Like the 250 P, the 275 P also enjoyed a brilliant start: victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring, further victories at the Nürburgring, Le Mans, and Mont Trembant. 1964 was a good racing year for Ferrari, although the AC Cobra/Ford put in a particularly strong performance at Le Mans. The tenth Manufacturers’ World Championship title was celebrated in Italy in 1964.

A technology familiar from Formula 1 racing cars made its way into racing prototype construction for the first time with the 275/330 P2: The tubular space frames were replaced by partially self-supporting bodies made of tubes and riveted aluminum sheets. Nevertheless, the 330 P2 looked uncannily similar to the 250 LM, and the Italian toy manufacturer Mercury quickly reworked the molds of its 250 LM into the 330 P2. The V12 in the 275/330 P2 produced 350 hp from 3.3 liters, had four overhead camshafts and six twin Weber carburetors. The five vehicles were later sold to private teams and fitted with a 4.4-liter engine producing 380 hp. Thus, three of the five 275/330 P2s evolved into the Tipo 365 P2 in their original year of 1965. A further evolutionary stage was the 330 P2 Muletto, presented in December 1964. It was left unpainted for the following test drives and was only presented in a slightly modified form in the house colors of NART at the season opener in Daytona, and later in red at the races in Europe.

The 1965 racing year began with disappointment for the Scuderia: At the 2000 Kilometers of Daytona, the first four places went to Ford (GT40 first and third, AC Cobra/Ford second and fourth), with the best Ferrari finishing seventh. A Chaparral was successful at Sebring. Without Ford competition, Ferrari dominated at Monza. The 275 P2 finished first in the Targa Florio and celebrated a one-two victory at the Nürburgring. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, however, not only all the Fords retired, but also two 330 P2s and the 275 P2. However, the old 250 LM of Rindt/Greogory saved the Scuderia’s honor. However, this was to be Ferrari’s last victory at Le Mans. Ferrari won the Prototype World Championship in 1965.

Wide range of contemporary toy cars

Such a successful model, with a new look thanks to its mid-engine layout, promised good toy car sales to boys. The fastest was Mercury, the Turin-based traditionalist founded in 1932 by Attilo Clemente and Antonio Cravero, who only discovered the 1:43 scale in the early 1960s and had previously produced smaller and larger models. Mercury’s 250 LM is a successful model built to the usual Mercury standards, without any added refinement. It features opening doors and a removable hood, a beautifully detailed 60-degree Colombo V12, a spare tire, and is equipped with solid plastic spoked wheels and rubber tires. Ultimately, the Mercury model, like its prototype, was a closed version of the existing 250 P, which had been developed from the converted 1961 Dino 246 SP.

Then Corgi Toys arrived, somewhat late in February 1965, but with an outstanding model. The Ferrari was measured and photographed by Corgi product managers in the autumn of 1963 at the London Motor Show (Earls Court Motor Show). For the first time, Corgi Toys created openwork spoked wheels made of die-cast zinc for this model, and unlike the Mercury model, the large bonnet was not removable but hinged. The steering wheel is also true to the original, another feature first implemented by Corgi. It is certainly debatable, however, that the interior, including the steering wheel, was molded together with the marvelous engine and is therefore chrome-plated, a fact that is only inadequately concealed by the extremely blue-tinted windows. Corgi produced the Ferrari until 1972, and it retained its beautiful metal spoked wheels until the very end, thus not being disfigured by modern plastic whizzwheels.

The last of the bunch was another Italian, this time Politoys, who took advantage of the grace of being born late to miniaturize the 1965 version, the model with the roof flaps for easier entry and the rear window that extended the interior slightly towards the rear and covered the engine. Like Corgi Toys, Politoys also opted for a model with superior detail, including metal spoked rims (although not as neatly chiseled as Corgi), and on this model, truly everything opens: We counted eight moving parts—and that’s on a 1:43 toy car from the mid-1960s! While doors and hoods are still a must, the moving roof flaps are truly the icing on the cake, and this is topped off by the moving side flaps on the hood.

There were other Ferrari 250 LMs made of die-cast zinc in plus/minus 1:43, for example by Joal from Spain, which quite blatantly copied a Mercury, or by Mandarin from Singapore, a simple but rare toy model, at least in our latitudes. Re-El in Italy made a large functional toy in the imperial scale of 1:12 from high-gloss ABS plastic, i.e., thermoplastic. It is a functional toy with a battery-powered electric motor and a rotating, driven disc between the front wheels that makes the car whizz around wildly when in operation. In terms of form, Re-El did a great job: a beautiful and impressively large 250 LM, manufactured in the late 1960s and not easy to find today. We won’t go into the diverse model cars in 1:18 and 1:43 that have appeared since the 1990s.

Shortly before delivery

The long-awaited CMC model is about to be delivered. The different versions will be manufactured one after the other and will therefore be launched gradually, starting in August with the M-268 (Monza winner in 1964), followed by the other red models, then the silver and yellow, and finally the Drogo Nose models. This will continue into the fall. We received the first photos of the production-ready models from CMC, which we are happy to show here – these are still pre-production models, but the final samples. We will discuss the individual versions and their backgrounds, and of course the differences between them, once we have the CMC Ferrari 250 LM in person on the black desk. That won’t be too long now, and it will be the M-265, red, the car driven by Spoerry/Boller at Le Mans in 1965 with starting number 27.

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