The car's history begins not in 1962 but in early 1960, when it left the Ferrari factory as chassis 0780TR, a Fantuzzi-bodied 250 TRI60 Spyder. It debuted at the 1960 Targa Florio with Scuderia Ferrari but was badly damaged in a practice session when Cliff Allison suffered a tyre blowout. Rebuilt using parts from a wrecked 250 TR59/60, it returned to the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Willy Mairesse and Richie Ginther drove before retiring with a broken driveshaft on Sunday morning.
Ferrari then used 0780TR as an aerodynamic test bed. Carlo Chiti and Giotto Bizzarrini fitted it with a TRI61-style high rear body and Kamm tail to develop the 1961 bodywork, and in this form it returned for the 1961 12 Hours of Sebring. Driven by Giancarlo Baghetti, Mairesse, Ginther, and Wolfgang von Trips, it finished second overall behind teammates Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien.
At the 1961 Nurburgring 1000 km, entered by the factory-supported North American Racing Team and driven by Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, the car finished second behind a Maserati Tipo 61, losing a likely victory after destroying a front wheel. At the 1961 24 Hours of Le Mans, Mairesse and Mike Parkes again finished second, inheriting the position when the Rodriguez brothers retired with two hours remaining. The season concluded with a victory at the 1961 Pescara 4 Hours, where Lorenzo Bandini and Giorgio Scarlatti won despite an oil leak that had dropped Bandini as far back as 27th place before he fought back to lead.
For 1962 the CSI and ACO restructured their regulations to emphasise GT cars and raise the displacement limit for the new experimental class to four litres, making the 3-litre sports-racing category that Ferrari had dominated since 1958 essentially obsolete. Ferrari replaced its sports racers with mid-engined designs but chose simultaneously to rebuild 0780TR into a more powerful front-engined machine for one final Le Mans campaign.
The transformation was substantial. The 3.0-litre 250-series Colombo V12 was replaced by a Tipo 163 4.0-litre Colombo V12 with free-breathing cylinder heads, larger valves, six twin-barrel Weber 42DCN carburettors, and dry sump lubrication. This engine produced 390 hp at 7,500 rpm — 50 bhp more than the 250 TR's engine and with a power-to-displacement ratio of nearly 100 hp per litre. The larger engine was 10 cm longer than its predecessor, necessitating a chassis frame extended by 6.3 cm for balance and strengthened for the additional power and torque. A new Fantuzzi body incorporating an aerodynamic roll hoop was built around it, and the five-speed transaxle received strengthened gears. A new chassis number, 0808, was assigned to reflect the extent of the rebuild.
The 330 TRI/LM debuted at the Le Mans test sessions in April, where defending winners Phil Hill and Gendebien recorded the fastest lap of the day despite wet conditions. During race week practice Hill broke Mike Hawthorn's existing lap record by 3.5 seconds over the rest of the field.
The race carried mechanical anxiety from the outset. The car had suffered clutch slip under peak torque acceleration since the first practice session. Gendebien described it in notably critical terms, citing a shaky clutch, fragile gearbox, and inadequate brakes. The drivers managed the clutch by shifting at higher-than-usual gear ratios and avoiding aggressive acceleration. Neither driver expected the car to complete 24 hours.
Despite a slow start from Gendebien, the car's pace proved decisive. It gained the lead, fending off the Ferrari 246 SP of the Rodriguez brothers and briefly the Aston Martin DP212 of Graham Hill and Richie Ginther. When the Rodriguez brothers retired at 4:30 am with gearbox problems, Hill and Gendebien held a four-lap lead that they extended to five by the finish. The victory made them the first driver pairing to win Le Mans three times together; Gendebien became the first four-time Le Mans winner. The 330 TRI/LM was the last front-engined car to achieve an overall Le Mans victory.
Following the victory the 330 TRI/LM was ineligible for further European races under the season's regulations. Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team acquired it to enable Pedro Rodriguez to race in North America. NART mechanics removed the aerodynamic roll hoop, believing it added drag. Rodriguez won the 1962 Bridgehampton Grand Prix and finished second at the 1962 Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport. For the Nassau Trophy, Masten Gregory substituted after Ricardo Rodriguez's fatal crash at the Mexican Grand Prix and finished fourth.
In 1963 Graham Hill and Rodriguez drove the 330 TRI/LM to third at the 12 Hours of Sebring, at one point holding a three-lap lead over the newer Scuderia Ferrari mid-engined 250 P prototypes before mechanical and electrical problems and exhaust intrusion from a split manifold slowed them. NART entered the car at the 1963 24 Hours of Le Mans to defend the title, with Pedro Rodriguez and Roger Penske starting from pole position. They ran second before the engine threw a connecting rod in the ninth hour; oil on the rear tyres caused the car to crash and collect Jo Bonnier's Porsche. Penske was uninjured but the car was severely damaged and never raced again.
After the 1963 Le Mans crash the 330 TRI/LM was returned to the Ferrari factory for repair. A new coupe body was made by Fantuzzi and the car was sent to Chinetti in the United States as a road car. Hisashi Okada of Long Island bought it in 1965 and drove it daily on the streets of Manhattan before trading it for a 250 LM in 1974. Pierre Bardinon subsequently acquired it, also using it in New York City until 1993. In 1974 he commissioned Fantuzzi to restore the car to its 1962 racing specification, with the coupe body transferred to a 250 GT Coupe (chassis 1087GT).
Bardinon sold the car on 12 June 2002 to Rob Myers for US$5,800,000. It appeared at RM Sotheby's Monterey auction on 17 August 2002 and sold for US$6,500,000 including buyer's premium to Jim Spiro of New Orleans, who drove it in road rallies and city traffic. The car narrowly avoided Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when Spiro moved it two days before the storm. At the RM Sotheby's 2007 Maranello auction, Gregorio Perez Companc paid EUR 7,000,000 including buyer's premium — the car's last recorded sale.
The 330 TRI/LM holds an unrepeated distinction as the last front-engined winner of Le Mans. Its creation as a conversion of an existing chassis rather than a purpose-built new car gives it an unusual narrative continuity across three racing seasons and two distinct identities. As the final Testa Rossa variant, it marks the end of a front-engined Ferrari sports-racing tradition that had won the World Sportscar Championship in 1958, 1960, and 1961, and three consecutive Le Mans victories from 1960 through 1962. The mid-engined cars that succeeded it — beginning with the Ferrari 250 P — represented a decisive break in engineering philosophy, making the 330 TRI/LM not only the final car of a lineage but also the dividing line between two eras of Ferrari endurance racing.