In 1960 Ferrari introduced the first car in the 250 line to have 4 seats. The 250 GTE was a completely new design for Ferrari by Pininfarina. Because it appealed to a much broader range of the market, this new concept was extremely successful and around 950 examples of the Ferrari 250 GTE were manufactured between 1960 and 1963. The success of the Ferrari 250 GTE is one of the primary factors in Ferraris financial wellbeing in the 1960's. The list price of a Ferrari 250 GTE at that time was around $11500.

The Ferrari 250 GTE used a Colombo designed 2953cc V12 engine producing around 235bhp at 7000rpm.

Due to the number of Ferrari 250 GTEs that were built many of them have been used as donor vehicles for the creation of replicas of rarer types.

Some minor modifications in 1962 also brought about a name change to Ferrari 250 GT 2+2. This car would evolve into the Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 and the Ferrari 330 GT America.