No chance
In 1965, Ferrari was still able to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with luck, the 250 LM of Rindt/Gregory/(Hugus) was an outsider, entered by an American private team more by chance. From 1966, the Italians were up against it with the Ford GT40s, and after that, Ferrari had no chance against the Porsche 917s with the 512 S and 512 M. The palmares of the example shown here, #1030, is also anything but impressive. Delivered to the Garage Francorchamps, it contested its first race as a 512 S in mid-May 1970 in the 1000-kilometre race at Spa with Derek Bell/Hughes de Fierlant and came in 8th. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Alistair Walker/de Fierlant managed fourth place, and in 1971, after the S had been converted to an M at the factory, Alain de Cadenet/Lothar Motschenbacher just missed the podium again at the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen. That was about it, really.
The Ferrari subsequently had a number of (prominent) owners, including Anthony Bamford, Carlo Bonomi, Terry Jones, Yoshiho Matsuda, and from 2005 Jean Guikas, and since 2015 probably the Blackbird Collection in Hong Kong. Regular visitors to races with historic vehicles might recognise this vehicle, which is because two replicas were created in the 2010s, one of which was bought by Carlos Monteverde, the owner of 512 M #1002, who prefers to race the ‘double’ over the tracks rather than his original. At the beginning of February 2025, RM Sotheby’s will auction this Ferrari, i.e. #1030, in Paris, with an estimated price of 9 to 12 million euros. We will assume that this is the original.
You can read more about the Ferrari 512 S and 512 M here. And then there is the archive.
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