A superb and rare photo of the magnificent Ford GT40 Mk IV
of AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney , photographed after
they WON the 1967
24 Hours race of Le Mans which was ridden on the 10TH and 11TH of June, 1966.
AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney won the Prototype
Unlimited class and drove 388
laps in the 24 hours long race.
This is a very historic photo, as Ford just won their SECOND of four consecutive Ford GT40 victories at the 24
Hours of Le Mans
between 1966 and 1969!
The Ford
GT40 was a high performance sports car and winner of the 24 hours of Le
Mans four times in a row, from 1966 to 1969 (in 1967 with a different body,
though). It was built to win long-distance sports car races against Ferrari
(who won at Le Mans
six times in a row from 1960 to 1965). The GT40 GT-40P 1075 was the first car
to win at Le Mans
twice (in 1968 and 1969). That car used the Gurney Weslake engine with the
special alloy heads made by Weslake. The car was named the GT (for Grand
Tourisme) with the 40 representing its overall height of 40 inches (1.02 m, measured at the
windshield) as required by the rules. Large displacement Ford V8 engines
(4.7 L and 7 L)
were used, compared with the Ferrari V12 which displaced 3.0 L or 4.0 L. Early cars were simply
named "Ford GT". The name "GT40" was the name of Ford's
project to prepare the cars for the international endurance racing circuit, and
the quest to win the 24 Hours of Le
Mans. The first 12 "prototype" vehicles
carried serial numbers GT-101 through GT-112. The "production" began
and the subsequent cars, the MkI, MkIIs, MkIIIs, and MkVs, numbered GT40-P-1000
through GT40-P-1145, were officially "GT40s". The name of Ford's
project, and the serial numbers dispel the story that "GT40" was
"only a nickname." The contemporary Ford GT is a modern homage to the
GT40.
Henry Ford II had wanted a Ford at Le Mans since the early 1960s. In the spring
of 1963, Ford reportedly received word through a European intermediary that
Enzo Ferrari was interested in selling to Ford Motor Company. Ford reportedly
spent several million dollars in an audit of Ferrari factory assets and in
legal negotiations, only to have Ferrari unilaterally cut off talks at a late
stage. Ferrari, who wanted to remain the sole operator of his company's motor
sports division, was angered when he was told that he would not be allowed to
race at the Indianapolis 500 if the deal went through. Enzo cut the deal off
out of spite and Henry Ford II, enraged, directed his racing division to find a
company that could build a Ferrari-beater on the world endurance-racing
circuit. To this end Ford began negotiation with Lotus, Lola, and Cooper.
Cooper had no experience in GT or prototype and its performances in Formula One
were declining. Lotus was already a Ford partner for their Indy 500 project.
Ford executives already doubted the ability of Lotus to handle this new
project. Colin Chapman probably had similar views as he asked a high price for
his contribution and insisted that the car (which became the Lotus Europa)
should be named a Lotus-Ford, an attitude that can be viewed as polite refusal.
The Lola proposal was chosen, since Lola had used a Ford V8 engine in their
mid-engined Lola Mk 6 (also known as Lola GT). It was one of the most advanced
racing cars of the time, and made a noted performance in Le Mans 1963, even though the car did not
finish. However, Eric Broadley, Lola Cars' owner and chief designer, agreed on
a short-term personal contribution to the project without involving Lola Cars.
The agreement with Eric Broadley included a one year collaboration between Ford
and Broadley and the sale of the two Lola Mk 6 chassis built to Ford. To form
the development team, Ford also hired the ex-Aston Martin team manager John
Wyer. Ford Motor Co. engineer Roy Lunn was sent to England; he had designed the
mid-engined Mustang I concept car powered by a 1.7 L V4. Despite the small
engine of the Mustang I, Lunn was the only Dearborn's engineer to have some experience
with a mid-engined car. Broadley, Lunn and Wyer began working on the new car at
Lola Factory in Bromley. At the end of 1963 the team moved to Slough, England
near Heathrow airport. Ford established a new subsidiary under the direction of
Wyer, Ford Advanced Vehicles Ltd to manage the project. The first chassis built
by Abbey Panels of Coventry was delivered on March 16, 1963. The first "Ford GT"
the GT/101 was unveiled in England
on April 1 and soon after exhibited in New
York. It was powered by the 4.2 L Fairlane
engine with a Colotti transaxle, the same power plant was used by the Lola GT
and the single-seater Lotus 29 that came in a highly controversial second at
the Indy 500 in
1963. (A DOHC head design was used in later years at Indy. It won in 1965 in the Lotus 38.) The
Ford GT40 was first raced in May 1964 at the Nürburgring 1000 km race where it
retired with suspension failure after holding second place early in the event.
Three weeks later at the 24 Hours of Le
Mans, all three entries retired although the
Ginther/Gregory car led the field from the second lap until its first pitstop.
February 1965 saw Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby take a Shelby American entered GT40
to victory in the Daytona 2000
km. The experience gained in 1964 and 1965 allowed the
7-litre Mk II to dominate the 24 Hours of Le
Mans race in 1966 with a 1-2-3 result. The finish, however, was clouded
in controversy: in the final few hours, the Ford GT of New Zealanders Bruce
McLaren and Chris Amon closely trailed the leading Ford GT driven by Ken Miles.
Ford team officials faced a difficult choice. They could allow the drivers to
settle the outcome by racing each other – and risk one or both cars breaking
down or crashing. They could dictate a finishing order to the drivers –
guaranteeing that one set of drivers would be extremely unhappy. Or they could
arrange a tie, with the McLaren/Amon and Miles/Hulme cars crossing the line
side-by-side. The team chose the last and informed McLaren and Miles of the
decision just before the two got in their cars for the final stint. Then, not
long before the finish, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO),
organizers of the Le Mans event, informed Ford that the geographical difference
in starting positions would be taken into account at a close finish – meaning
that the McLaren/Amon vehicle, which had started perhaps 60 feet (18 m) behind the
Hulme-Miles car, would have covered slightly more ground over the 24 hours and
would therefore be the winner. Secondly, Ford officials admitted later, the
company's contentious relationship with Miles, its top contract driver, placed
executives in a difficult position. They could reward an outstanding driver who
had been at times extremely difficult to work with, or they could decide in favour
of drivers (McLaren/Amon) with less commitment to the Ford program but who had
been easier to deal with. Ford stuck with the orchestrated photo finish but
Miles, deeply bitter over this decision after his dedication to the program,
issued his own protest by suddenly slowing just yards from the finish and letting
McLaren across the line first. Sadly and ironically, Miles died in a testing
accident just two months later. Miles was thus denied his deserved unique
achievement of winning Sebring, Daytona and Le Mans in the same year, the last before his
death. Miles' death occurred at the wheel of the Ford "J-car", an
iteration of the GT40 that included several unique features. These included an
aluminum honeycomb chassis construction and a "breadvan" body design
that experimented with "kammback" aerodynamic theories.
Unfortunately, the fatal Miles accident was attributed at least partly to the
unproven aerodynamics of the J-car design, and the team embarked on a complete
redesign of the car, which became known as the Mk IV. The Mk IV, a newer design
with a Mk II engine but a different chassis and a different body, won the
following year (when four Mark IVs, three Mark IIs and three Mark Is raced).
The high speeds achieved in that race caused a rule change, which already came
in effect in 1968: the prototypes were limited to the capacity of to 3.0 L, the same as in Formula
One. This took out the V12-powered Ferrari 330P as well as the Chaparral and
the Mk. IV. If at least 50 cars had been built, sportscars like the GT40 and
the Lola T70 were allowed, with a maximum of 5.0 L. John Wyer's revised
4.7 L Mk I won the 24 hours of Le Mans race in 1968 against the fragile
smaller prototypes. This result added to four other round wins for the GT40
gave Ford victory in the 1968 International Championship for Makes. The GT40's
intended 3.0 L replacement, the Ford P68, proved a dismal failure. In
1969, facing more experienced prototypes and the new yet still unreliable
4.5 L flat-12 powered Porsche 917s, the winners Ickx/Oliver managed to
beat the remaining 3.0 L Porsche 908 by just a few seconds with the
already outdated GT40 (in the very car that had won in 1968). Apart from brake
wear in the Porsche and the decision not to change pads so close to the race
end, the winning combination was relaxed driving by both GT40 drivers and
heroic efforts at the right time by (at that time Le Mans' rookie) Jacky Ickx,
who won Le Mans five times more in later years. In 1970, the revised Porsche
917 dominated, and the GT40 had become obsolete. The Mk I was the original Ford
GT40. Early prototypes were powered by 4.2 L (260 cu.in) engines; production models
were powered by 4.6 L
(289 cu.in) engines, also used in the Ford Mustang. Several prototype models
had roadster bodywork. The Ford X1 was a roadster built to contest the Fall
1965 North American Pro Series, a forerunner of CanAm, entered by the Bruce
McLaren team and driven by Chris Amon. The car had an aluminum chassis built at
Abbey Panels and was originally powered by a 4.6 L (289ci) engine. The
real purpose of this car was to test several improvements originating from Kar
Kraft, Shelby and McLaren. Several gearboxes were used: a Hewland LG500 and at
least one automatic gearbox. It was later upgraded to Mk II specifications with
a 7.0 LC (427ci) engine and a standard four ratio Kar Kraft gearbox, however
the car kept specific features such as its open roof and lightweight chassis.
The car went on to win the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1966. The Mk II used the 7.0 L (427 CID) engine from the Ford Galaxie. For Daytona
1967, two Mk II models (chassis 1016 and 1047) were fitted with Mercury 7.0 L engines. Mercury is a
Ford Motor Company division, and Mercury's 427 was the exact same engine as
Ford's with different logos. A batch of wrongly heat treated input shafts in
the transaxles sidelined virtually every Ford in the race, however, and Ferrari
won 1-2-3. The Mk III was a road-car only, of which 7 were built. The
car had four headlights, the rear part of the body was expanded to make room
for luggage, the 4.6 L
engine was detuned to 335 bhp (250 kW), the shocks were softened, the
shift lever was moved to the center and the car was available with the steering
wheel on the left side of the car. The most famous Mk III
is GT40 M3 1105, a
blue left hand drive model delivered in 1968 in Austria to Herbert von Karajan. As
the Mk III wasn't very appealing
aesthetically (it looked significantly different from the racing models), many
customers interested in buying a GT40 for road use chose to buy a Mk I that was
available from Wyer Ltd. In an effort to develop a car with better aerodynamics
and lighter weight, it was decided to retain the 7 liter engine, but
redesign the rest of the car. In order to bring the car more "in
house" and lessening partnership with English firms, Ford Advanced
Vehicles was sold to John Wyer and the new car was designed by Ford's studios
and produced by Ford's subsidiary Kar Kraft under Ed Hull. There was also a partnership
with the Brunswick Aircraft Corporation for expertise on the novel use of
honeycomb aluminium panels bonded together to form a lightweight but rigid
"tub". The car would make full use of the new and more liberal
Appendix J regulations for race car construction, and was therefore known as
the J-car. The first J-car was completed in March, 1966 and set the fastest
time at the Le Mans trials that year. The tub weighed only 86 lb (39 kg), and the entire
car weighed only 2,660 lb (1,210 kg), 300 lb (140 kg) less than the
Mk II. It was decided to run the MkIIs due to their proven reliability,
however, and little or no development was done on the J-car for the rest of the
season. Following LeMans, the development program for the J-car was resumed,
and a second car was built. During a test session at Riverside International
Raceway in August 1966, with Ken Miles driving, the car suddenly went out of
control at the end of Riverside's
high-speed, 1-mile-long back straight. The honeycomb chassis did not live up to
its design goal, shattering upon impact, bursting into flames and killing
Miles. It was decided that the unique, flat-topped "bread van"
aerodynamics of the car, lacking any sort of spoiler, were implicated in
generating excess lift, and a more conventional but significantly more
aerodynamic body was designed for the Mk IV. The Mk. IV ran in only two races
(Sebring 1967 and Le Mans 1967) but won both events. The Ford GT 40 Mk IV was
built around a reinforced J chassis powered by the same 7.0 L engine as the Mk II.
Excluding the engine, the Mk IV was totally different from other GT40s, using a
specific chassis and specific bodywork. As a direct result of the Miles
accident, the team installed a NASCAR-style steel-tube roll cage in the Mk. IV,
which made it much safer but negated most of the weight saving of the
honeycomb-panel construction. Dan Gurney often complained about the weight of
the Mk IV, since the car was 600
pounds heavier than the Ferraris it raced. The
installation of the roll cage was ultimately credited by many with saving the
life of Mario Andretti, who crashed violently in a Mk. IV during the 1967 Le Mans, but escaped with
minor injuries. The Ford G7A was a CanAm car using the J chassis. Unlike the
earlier Mk.I,II and III cars,
which were entirely British, the Ford J and Mk. IV were built in America by Shelby. As the price and
the rarity of the Ford GT40 have increased, so has the demand for cheaper
cosmetic imitations and replicas of varying quality.
This is a very nice and very rare non period photo
that reflects a wonderful era of Ford GT 40 and 24 Hours of Le Mans history in
a wonderful way. This is your rare
chance to own this photo, therefore it is printed in a nice large format
of ca. 8" x 10" (ca. 20 x 25 cm). It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.