In 1962, Ferrari debuted a car at the Paris Salon that stopped conversation in its tracks. The 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso, designed by Pininfarina and hand-built by Scaglietti in Modena, was described by Car and Driver at the time as approaching perfection in its proportions. Sixty-three years later, that assessment still holds.
The Lusso, which translates simply as luxury, arrived at a specific moment in Ferrari’s history. The 250 GT coupe series was winding down, the 250 GTO was consuming the racing programme, and Ferrari needed a road car that could satisfy customers who wanted the lineage of the 250 family with a proper interior and space for luggage. What they got was something considerably better than that brief required.
The body was designed by Pininfarina and built by Scaglietti, with aluminium doors, bonnet and boot lid over a steel structure to reduce weight. The front end carried a wide, low oval grille similar to the 250 GT SWB Berlinetta, the roofline swept back in a long, unbroken curve, and the rear featured a fast-back treatment that Pininfarina subsequently copied for the 330 LM racing cars built for the 1963 Le Mans. The proportions were so resolved that most of the significant designers and collectors in the Ferrari world have consistently placed the Lusso at the top of any conversation about the most beautiful cars the company ever made, above the GTO, above the 275 GTB, above the Daytona.
The chassis was the tubular steel Tipo 539 frame, directly comparable to the 250 GTO’s structure, built on a 94.5-inch wheelbase shared with that car. The suspension ran unequal-length A-arms and coil springs at the front, with a live rear axle located by parallel trailing arms and leaf springs at the rear. The brakes were discs at all four corners. The steering was a ZF worm and wheel unit that gave the car a directness in period that most road cars of the era couldn’t match.
Under the bonnet sat the final road car evolution of Gioacchino Colombo’s 3.0-litre 60-degree V12, the engine that had powered Ferrari’s racing programme through the 1950s and into the 1960s. The Lusso version used the 250 SWB’s crankshaft and valves, with pistons and cylinder heads from the 250 GTE, producing around 240hp at 7,500rpm. Three Weber twin-choke carburettors fed it. The gearbox was a four-speed all-synchromesh unit. Top speed was around 240km/h and the car weighed 1,020kg dry, which meant that power-to-weight ratio was doing most of the work a modern car achieves through four times the displacement.
The interior was the most considered of any Ferrari of its era. Pininfarina placed the instruments in a unique binnacle mounted centrally on the dashboard rather than behind the steering wheel, angled toward the driver. The seats were heavily bolstered buckets trimmed in the finest leather available. There was actual luggage space. The specification sheet called it a grand tourer and, unlike most cars that have made that claim over the years, it genuinely was one.
Production ran from early 1963 through to late 1964, at which point the 275 GTB replaced it. Total production was 350 examples, including the Pininfarina and Scaglietti prototypes. Of those 350, only 20 were built in right-hand drive, and it is believed only 17 of those survive today. Famous owners included Steve McQueen, who owned chassis 4891 GT, and actor James Coburn.
The current collector market places clean, matching-numbers examples at anywhere between $1.5 million and $3 million USD depending on provenance, colour and documentation. Bordeaux, the dark oxblood shade seen in the photograph that prompted this article, is among the most desirable colourways precisely because it gives the Lusso what the Instagram account that posted it called an old money character, which is an accurate description of what it actually is.
It was the last Ferrari of the 250 GT line built purely as a road car. Everything that preceded it in the series had either been a racing car, a race car derivative, or a grand tourer that compromised in one direction or the other. The Lusso compromised in neither, which is why people are still talking about it.