Ferrari P
sports prototype racing cars
The Ferrari P was a series of rear mid-engined two seat sports prototype racing car models produced by Ferrari during the 1960s and early 1970s to be raced mainly by the factory Scuderia Ferrari racing team. When a double digit number of identical cars was planned for homologation and sale to customers, the codes LM (Le Mans) or S (Sportscar) were used instead.
Although Enzo Ferrari witnessed the rear mid-engined Auto Union racing cars of the 1930s, and with Cooper dominating F1 with back-to-back World Championship wins, 1959 and 1960, he resisted to move the engine behind the driver. This even after Scuderia Ferrari put the Dino V6 engine in the rear of a single-seater, resulting in the Ferrari 246 P and the Ferrari 156 F1 "shark nose" that won the 1961 Formula One season.
The Dino V6 with 2.0 or 2.4 litres was also used in the first rear mid-engined Ferrari sport prototypes of the Ferrari SP series of 1961–1962. The 3 litres-plus V12 sports car racers followed in 1963, starting the P series. Although these cars shared their numerical designations (based on engine displacement) with road models, they were almost entirely different.
The production racers Ferrari 250 LM of 1964 and Ferrari Dino 206S of 1966 were intended for homologation in Groups 3 or 4 and could be made road legal, to be run with Prova plates, or as 'Stradale' for sale to customers in various countries. The first Ferrari mid-engine in a proper road car did not arrive until the 1967 Dino 206 GT, and it was 1971 when a road-going Ferrari 12-cylinder engine was placed behind the driver in the 365 GT4 BB, with V12 front engine GT 2+2 models never been discontinued.
250 P
Ferrari produced a few of the V12 rear-engine 250 P in 1963 in response to the FIA introducing a prototype class for the upcoming season of the World Sportscar Championship.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ferrari P” is sports prototype racing cars. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ferrari, sports and prototype, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “sports prototype racing cars” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3069700. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ferrari P”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ferrari P primary sources, Ferrari P archive and Ferrari research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ferrari P”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ferrari P” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.