A superb and rare photo of the magnificent Shelby Ford GT40 Mk. II
seen at the 24 Hours race of Daytona
(USA) which was ridden on February 4 and February 5, 1967.
The Daytona 24 Hours race
has an interesting history that started in 1962, a few years after the permanent Daytona oval track
was built. That year a 3-hour sports car race was introduced, the Daytona Continental,
which counted towards the World Sportscar Championship. The first Continental
was won by Dan Gurney, driving a 2.7L Coventry Climax powered Lotus 19, dubbed
the Monte Carlo after Stirling Moss bringing Lotus their first Formula One win
at Monaco in 1960 despite being a factory driver for Porsche at that time. Many
Porsche 718s were driven by privateers, but these 1600 cc cars were considered
rather underpowered for a relatively short and fast race despite having won the
twisty Targa Florio and the tough 12 Hours of Sebring. In 1964, the event was
expanded to 2000 km (1220 miles), doubling the classic 1000 km distance of races at
Nürburgring, Spa and Monza. The distance amounted to roughly the half of the
distance the 24 Hours of Le Mans winners covered at
the time and was similar in length to the Sebring 12 hour race, which was also
held in Florida a few weeks later
in the year. Starting in 1966, the Daytona race was extended to the same 24
hour length as Le Mans. However, Daytona
would go into history as the first race where the Ford GT40 scored its very
first race victory.
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.
There have been several kit cars and replicas made that have
been inspired by the Ford GT40, as well as a few continuations (exact
replicas):
* KVA GT40 England
* GT40/R Competition United
States. Built by
Superformance, and the only race-version continuation model fully licensed by
Safir GT40 Spares (Ltd), the GT40/R was approved for vintage racing in 2009 by
the Historic Sportscar Racing association and is distributed by Pathfinder
Motorsports LLC
* Superformance - the Superformance GT40 is an extremely
accurate continuation model with approximately 85% interchangeable parts with
the original; these cars are licensed by Safir GT40 Spares and carry
continuation chassis numbers from the original cars
* Roaring Forties Australian Based manufacturer
* Auto Futura CAV GT South
Africa
* AvengerGT-12 - 1960s VW-based Fiberfab Avenger GT
* Fiberfab Valkyrie - 1960s/1970s V-8 powered, tube frame
with Corvair transaxle and suspension. Fiberfab Valkyrie
* ERA performance
* v8archie - rebodied Pontiac Fiero
* Race Car Replicas
* Lone Star Classics
* Tornado Sports Cars - based in England, they are
the longest running replica maker of the GT40
* MDA - based in England
* DRB Sports Cars - based in Australia
* Turn Ten Racing - a new company located in Canada
* GTD40 - one of the most famous GT40 kit cars ever to be
built due to its accuracy to the real thing. Continued production until its
demise in 1997, due to the failed Spectre R42 project.
* GOX Teknik - based in Sweden, makes both
an exact replica and a simpler look-alike.
* Africa40 Africa40 GT40 replica manufacturer based in South
Africa
* Holman Moody Holman Moody, whose GT40 Mark IIs won first,
second, and third at Le Mans in 1966,
still manufactures a small number of GT40s from the 1966 blueprints.
At the 1995 Detroit Auto Show, the Ford GT90 concept was
shown and at the 2002 show, a new GT40 Concept was unveiled by Ford. Similar in
appearance to the original cars, but bigger, wider, and especially taller than
the original 40 inches (1.02
m) - a potential name resultantly was the GT43.
Three production prototype cars were shown in 2003 as part of Ford's centenary,
and delivery of the production Ford GT began in the fall of 2004. The Ford GT
was assembled in the Ford Wixom plant and painted by Saleen, Incorporated at
their Saleen Special Vehicles plant in Troy, Michigan. A British
company, Safir Engineering, who made continuation GT40s in the 1980s owned the
GT40 trademark at that time, and when they completed production, they sold the
excess parts, tooling, design, and trademark to a small Ohio company
called Safir GT40 Spares. Safir GT40 Spares licensed the use of the GT40
trademark to Ford for the initial 2002 show car, but when Ford decided to make
the production vehicle, negotiations between the two failed, and as a result
the new Ford GT does not wear the badge GT40. It is rumored that Safir GT40
Spares asked $40 million dollars for the rights, but this has never been
verified. The partners at Safir GT40 Spares state they have correspondence from
Ford declining Safir's $8 million offer. Later models or prototypes have also
been called the Ford GT but have had different numbering on them such as the
Ford GT90 or the Ford GT70
This is a very nice and very rare photo that reflects a
wonderful era of Ford GT 40 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 12"
(ca. 20 x 30 cm). It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.