CT Special----The Ford GT40----Born Out Of The Most Infamous Grudge In Motoring History, Built To Teach Ferrari A Lesson, And It Most Certainly Did.

Allow me to let you in on a bit of a secret, when I first started writing the ‘Heroes Of Racing’ Series, with the MG Metro 6R4 being the first entry, I had always told myself that I would, One Day, write about the Ford GT40, a Ford born out of the most infamous grudge in the History Of Motoring, a Ford built to teach Ferrari a Lesson, and a Ford which surpassed all expectations, after being plagued by problems, and really did teach Ferrari a lesson. But, realizing that I had set myself a strict criteria(i.e, car in question must have a street form), in which I wouldn’t really be able to ‘Bend’ it so that I could cover it, I thought it would be impossible. But now? I can.

The GT40 was born out of the most infamous grudge in Motoring History, and it started out like a movie, played out like a movie, and Boy, did it end like one….

The story begins in the early 1960s. Henry Ford The Second had suddenly envisioned a Ford to be at Le Mans. And in the spring of 1963, he received word through a European intermediary that dear old Enzo Ferrari was interested in selling the Italian Upstart Company(Then only 16) that proudly bore his name to the Ford Motor Company. Ford then, reportedly, spent millions of dollars in an audit of Ferrari’s assets and legal negotiations, only for Ferrari to cut off talks, and become completely against the decision he had made, when told that he would not be allowed to race at the Indy 500 since Ford had raced in the Indy 500 using the company’s engine and didn’t want any competition from Ferrari, causing Enzo to say this: ‘My rights, my integrity, my very being as a manufacturer…Cannot work under the suffocating bureaucracy of the Ford Motor Company’, ‘Shouting Words that cannot be found in any dictionary(according to Don Frey, who was the one that found himself face-to-face with Enzo), and cut off talks out of spite.

When Don returned to Dearborn, Michigan, instead of being scolded which I suppose is very often for most companies when these kind of things happen, Henry Ford gave One, Simple, Order: ‘You go to Le Mans, and beat his ass.’

Then, a Brit named Roy Lunn was hired, since he had been involved with Aston Martin’s 1949 Le Mans effort and was running Ford’s Advanced Vehicle Department. Lunn’s team had developed 1962’s Mustang concept, a forward-thinking, Mid-Engined, aluminium-bodied roadster (the famed pony car that arrived two years later was rather different.).

And on June 12th, Lunn and Frey presented a confidential competition-programme to Ford’s cigar-chomping execs, envisaging a Mid-Engined racer called the ‘GT40’ (Named that way as it stood just 40 inches high), and a road-going ‘GT46’ iteration. According to Preston Lerner’s new book on Ford’s big adventure, Lunn wanted to ‘create a high performance, two-seater sportscar prototype that, if produced in low volume, would neutralise the Corvette image’. Apparently it would took five minutes to get the Green-Light,even though the executives had precisely zero idea of what was required, the other 55 being spent discussing the marketing strategy.

Then, Lunn was sent back to Britain, and began negotiations with Lotus, Lola, and Cooper. Cooper had no experience in GT or prototype vehicles and its Formula One performance was starting to decline.

Lotus was already a partner of Ford for its Indy 500 project, which is probably how Lotus found itself given the Cosworth DFV, but the cigar-chomping executives at Ford(Presumably) doubted Lotus’s ability to handle this new project. Colin Chapman, probably had the same view on this matter as he asked for a high price for his contribution and the car(Which would later become the original Lotus Europa), should be named as a Lotus-Ford. And as it so often goes, the Lotus Proposal was also declined,after that debacle.

Left with practically no other choice, the Lola Proposal was chosen, since Lola(named after the 1955 hit ‘Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets’ by Sarah Vaughan, by the way) had already used a Ford V8 in its Mid-Engined Lola Mark.VI(Six)(Also known as the Lola GT). It was one of the most technologically advanced racers of its day, and made a noted performance at Le Mans in that same year(1963, in case you forgot already), even though it didn’t finish, not least due to too low of a set of gearing, and slow revving out on the Mulsanne Straight. But, Eric Broadley, Lola Cars’ owner and chief designer, agreed on a short-term personal contribution that didn’t involve Lola Cars.

This agreement included a one-year collaboration between Ford and Broadley, and the sale of two Mark.VI’s, which cost $1.7m, all in, though that figure is presumably in USD. Then, Ford hired ex-Aston team manager John Wyer, and the three(Broadley, Lunn and Wyer), got to work in the Lola Factory in Bromley, before moving to an Industrial Estate in Slough, somewhere near Heathrow Airport, with Ford also establishing Ford Advanced Vehicles Ltd, as subsidiary under Wyer’s direction, to manage this project. Unfortunately enough, Broadley would soon clash with Lunn, while Broadley’s deputy, Tony Southgate(Who won go on to design numerous Formula One machines and the Le Mans-Winning Jag XJR-9), recalled that Ford’s approach was somewhat inflexible: ‘There was no deviating from the script. Well, Motor Racing is about as far removed from that as you can get.’

The first chassis built by Abbey Panels of Coventry was delivered on March 16, 1963, with fibre-glass mouldings produced by Fibre Glass Engineering Ltd of Farnham. The first ‘Ford GT’, the GT/101 was unveiled in England on April 1 and soon after exhibited in New York. Purchase price of the completed car for competition use was £5,200.
Powered by the Ford Fairlane-sourced 4.2-litre with a Colotti transaxle, which was the same power-plant powering the Lola GT and the single-seater Lotus 29 that came in a highly controversial second at the Indy 500 in 1963. (An aluminum block DOHC version, known as the Ford Indy Engine, was used in later years at Indy,this time shoved in the Lotus 38, in which it would win in 1965.)

In August that year, Bruce McLaren was hired to evaluate a prototype. The GT, by virtue of being Steel-Bodied, was heavy, but durable, while a fairly primitive computer programme helped to calibrate the suspension geometry. Unfortunately, a Le Mans test a few weeks later revealed a huge issue——The GT40 could do 200 mph, but it wanted to get airborne anywhere over 170. Meaning that the car had way too much lift for its own good.

The 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. After a season-long series of dismal results under John Wyer in 1964, the job of racing the GT40s was handed over to Carroll Shelby after the 1964 Nassau race, albeit with Wyer still in charge of building the cars. The cars were sent directly to Shelby, still bearing the dirt and damage from the Nassau race. And Shelby was noted for complaining that the cars were poorly maintained when he received them at his HQ which covered 12.5 acres near LA International Airport, on a site previously used for building Military Fighters, but later information revealed the cars were packed up as soon as the race was over, and FAV(Ford Advanced Vehicles) never had a chance to clean, and organize the cars to be transported to Shelby.

And with that, out went the old 4.2-litre 255 cubic inch V8, and in its place was shoehorned the famed 7.0-litre Side-Oiler V8 famously used in the Shelby Cobra, this time mated to a new ZF Transmission. And at Daytona in 1965, the Mk.II GT40 would score its very first race win, with Englishman Ken Miles and American Lloyd Ruby at the wheel. A podium in Sebring followed a month later, but Le Mans was a complete, and huge disaster, with all five GT40s entered recording DNFs.(And just to rub salt into Ford’s wounds, Ferrari would place ninth and claim an Overall Win that time, with the 250 LM’s driver line-up including future Formula One World Champion Jochen Rindt.)

The experience gained in 1964 and 1965 allowed the 7.0-litre Mark II to dominate the following year. In February, the GT40 again won at Daytona. This was the first year Daytona was run as the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the Mark.II’s finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. In March, at the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring, the GT40 would, Again take all three top finishes with the X-1 Roadster first, a Mark.II taking second, and a Mark.I in third. And then in June, the GT40 would line up for what its past years of development had come to: To try again at Le Mans.

Ford’s preparation for Le Mans included running a development engine on a dyno for 48 hours of simulated laps at La Sarthe, gearchanges and all, while a further 12 engines were race-prepared. Ford had basically assembled a bloody army for Le Mans that year – 100 personnel, nine cars (including a spare), seven spare engines, and 21 Tonnes of spare parts, all moved around in a giant truck too big to fit in some of the tighter French side streets. Henry Ford II was there, anticipating both a certain victory and a memorable return on his by-now Considerable investment, going so far as to hand Leo Beebe, head of Ford’s racing programmes, a business card inscribed with a simple message: ‘You better win’. A business card Beebe would keep for the rest of his life, presumably to remember 1966 and Le Mans.

And boy, did Henry Ford get the memorable return he had wanted for so long: The 1-2-3 Finish at Le Mans.
But, this 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 Englishman Ken Miles and New Zealander Denny Hulme. With a multimillion-dollar program finally on the very brink of success, 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…. Or 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), the 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(or 18 Metres, if you so need it) 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. Miles died in a testing accident in the ‘J-car’ (A GT40 with heavily reworked aero and a new chassis, somewhat shaped like a ‘Breadvan’, but because of the fact that it was the Sixties with no computer simulation programme, the only way to find out was to test it, and it turned out that it didn’t really work at the time, but later to become the Mark.IV(Four)) at Riverside (CA) Raceway just two months later.

The team embarked on a complete redesign of the J-car, which became known as the Mark.IV. The Mark.IV, a newer design with a Mk II engine but a different chassis and a different body, won the following year at Le Mans (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 now limited to the capacity of to 3.0 litre, the same as in Formula One(At the time). 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 litre (bored to 4.9 litres, and ‘O-Rings’ cut and installed between the deck and head to prevent head gasket failure, a common problem found with the 4.7 engine) Mk I. It 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, and Mirage cars proved a dismal failure. While facing more experienced prototypes and the new yet still unreliable 4.5 L flat-12 powered Porsche 917s, the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans winners Jacky Ickx/Jackie Oliver managed to beat the remaining 3.0 litre Porsche 908 by just a few seconds with the already outdated GT40 Mk I (in the very car that had won in 1968 - the legendary GT40P/1075). 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) Ickx, who won Le Mans five more times in later years. In 1970, the revised Porsche 917 dominated, and the GT40 had become obsolete.

So, to conclude then. The Ford GT40 was a Le Mans racer born out of an infamous grudge, a Ford born out of a simple order, a Ford which had to withstand numerous problems before gaining the success it had been made for, and a Ford which made the man whose company proudly bears his name proud, happy, and fulfilled, having achieved what he had envisioned 6 years before.

And on THAT Bombshell, you have just finished reading a CT Special, featuring the Ford GT40, a Ford which now remains as a True Racing Legend, etched in the memory of all, young and old, whether or not born in the same era as its race-days, and a car with successors, bearing that name, those looks, and the success proudly, and forging new paths for the name. Feel free to leave advice and suggestions down below, and I hope you enjoyed it.

See you at the next one.

P.S: In case you’re interested, here is the link to the very first entry to the ‘Heroes Of Racing’ Series, the MG Metro 6R4.
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/wbvpd8x/