DEVELOPMENT OF THE REAR-ENGINE 250 GT It is arguable that amid the tide of mid/rear-placed engine architecture that has steadily advanced in sports car design since the late 1950s, one manufacturer looms larger than all others—Ferrari.

Maranello’s embrace of this race-developed design stretches back to Dino Ferrari’s V-6 engine of the late 1950s, which was installed aft of the driver in the Scuderia’s Formula One cars in 1960 to great results.

Not long after, Ferrari began to engineer a sports car in this manner, resulting in the sensuous rear-engine 246 SP, the first in a small batch of Sports Prototype racecars with ever-increasing displacements.

Despite the continued evolution of the Dino V-6, however, the SP racecars often failed to keep pace with their larger-engined competitors.

This prompted Maranello’s engineers to consider a rear-placed V-12, and in early 1963 chassis number 0796, which began life as a 246 SP, was equipped with a 3-liter Colombo short-block engine tuned to...