C.T. Mountain is still kickin and sharp as a tack. Spent some time with him at Amelia 3yrs ago. He was 1 of the 3 originally tasked with development. Later went on with Kar Kraft (Ford-o-philes know that name well) and continued the effort well into the Trans Am stuff later. A brief book was released a few years back that covers a lot of it. I reach out to him every once in a while, this makes me want to call him soon and share chin music about it. My favorite from a strictly aesthetic point of view? The Mirage series. So fkn sexy...
I just saw the 1967 winning Mark IV being returned from Pebble Beach to its home at Henry Ford Museum on Monday. Apparently, 10 years ago it was damaged in shipping to Goodwood, and Dan Gurney's shop repaired the damage (sympathetically); while it was out, the 1968/69 LeMans winner P/1075 was in its place. IMO, these are the coolest race cars in the world.
I know they're different cars, but you have to watch this video of a Daytona coupe doing the Goodwood hill climb. Imagine you're in your Ferrari having that thing breathing down your neck for 24 hours.
If you want to read a very interesting interview about the Daytona Coupe Vs. the GT40 Vs. Ferrari, check this out: https://www.shelbylegendarycars.com/news-article/unlikely-story-ferrari-beating-shelby-daytona-coupe Even Ken Miles thought the Daytona had the potential to be faster than the GT40... He just wasn't certain about the car's reliability over 24 hours in France. Regardless, I love this quote:
Here is a real Daytona Coupe in action. I have mentioned this before on this site but ... what's one more time The wife had the TV on while she was doing something. I was in another room. She calls me to come see a blue car she doesn't recognize on the Monkees TV show. I may have actually pewped me pantaloons when I realized what it was For those interested, this vid is just the race scene, the car can be seen several other times during the episode.
When I started this series on America's efforts at Le Mans, I was pretty biased. Americans don't know how to build race cars and as such, they don't know how to drive one. And frankly, there is a ton of evidence to support that theory. The thing is though - you can never discount a hot rodder of any nationality. The GT40 proves that. A few hot rodders took an unproven British built race car, took advantage of one of the largest budgets in racing history, and then beat the shit out of the most successful factory team in racing history - Ferrari. They did it with an edgy modern chassis and an old truck motor. Punches in bunches... That was a jab that stunned Ferrari. The combination upper cut that laid Ferrari out for the count came from another group of hot rodders. Porsche was a young company then... filled with German hot rodders eager to prove their worth, but without the budget you'd think they would need to do so. In the late 1960's, they took an antiquated space frame chassis and used pure mechanical brilliance to build a car that was quicker than even the F1 cars of the time. The Porsche 917 made twice the horsepower of the GT40 and weighed hundreds of pounds less.... and it's probably the most dominate race car in history.... setting up the most dominate dynasty at Le Mans by a factory team. I mean, people don't talk about this much... But the Ferrari factory hasn't won at Le Mans (overall) since the GT40 punched them in the nose. And it makes me think about all of the European racing jokes aimed at Americans throughout the 1940's and 50's... Sure, Americans built overweight pigs that couldn't navigate a chicane on their best day... but they also killed the team no one in Europe could even touch for decades. The sad part is that the general public in the US didn't really care and as such, big corporations like Ford stopped caring as well. Instead, they dumped their money into lesser racing efforts like NASCAR to market muscle cars rather than sport purpose cars. Looking back now, it's pretty easy to consider the 1960's as the absolute pinnacle of American racing... and the GT40 as the absolute best sports car we've ever made.
My Dad was in the Army and stationed in France and went to LeMans. Here is one of the pics he took of the GT40s. You can see Shelby in the blue shirt and pants tucked into his boots on the pit wall above the C in LUCAS. Possibly Mr. Ford hanging over the upper balcony in blue shirt above Shelby.
I had an amazing conversation with Lee Holman at last springs Ford Carlisle. He spent a good bit of time sharing info about these great cars. It seems they (H/M) found the Co. in England that stamped many of the parts for the Lola/ GT 40 Mk 1-Mk2 programs. Lee has bought all he leftover parts they had. He has enough of these parts plus ALL of the original plans, blueprints and other documentation from Ford to build 2 (if not 3) NOS GT40 Mk2's. Lee feels this is the best of the Ford GT's. He told me the Lola Monocock Chassis was all Steel on the MK1-2 Cars and they(todays Holman and Moody) have the capabilities of RSW (Resistance Spot Weld) these "Tubs" just like Lola did back in the day. Lee told me the Mk4 (which I just love the looks of) was built on a Honey Comb Monocock chassis of Ford engineering design and had some design issues like suspension mounts pulling out of the tub... He also asked if I had $1,000,000 dollars for 1 of the new Mk 2s...damn wish I did. p.s. The Lola-GT40Mk1-Mk2 are all right hand drive with the center spine offset to the left allow more room for the driver.... I asked about an American version left had drive in case I hit the mega-millions...
Enzo Ferrari had a lot of influence with the sanctioning body and got the rules tailored to his liking leading up to the Ford/Ferrari war. He didn't take them seriously and with their relatively poor performance in '64/65 figured they'd just embarrass themselves. After being thumped by the 7-liter cars in '66/67, he successfully lobbied to reduce the displacement limit in the prototype class they were both running in down to 3 liters, figuring that would be the end of them. Ford corporate had lost interest at this point anyway; Henry 2s honor had been defended and they moved on to racing that had more relevance to their customer base. But Alan Mann had been building a steady supply of GT40s for sale to privateers, enough that the numbers now supported it as a 'production' model. The only fly in the ointment was a 5 liter displacement limit; the 427 was out. In '64 the small block was still a new design, there hadn't been that much development work done yet and reliability was an issue. By '68 they had worked the bugs out and with the addition of some Gurney-Weslake heads, the 302 was now competitive. In some ways the '68/69 victories were even sweeter, as the 'production' Fords defeated the prototype Ferraris yet again. By '70 the GT40 platform had 'aged out' and along with yet more rule changes was no longer competitive.
What's rad about this photo is that it was taken in '64... and Phil Hill and Bruce Mclaren were the drivers... super cool...
All I got connected to this was my having a Ford GT in my Aurora HO collection about 1966. If I recall it was white with blue stripes, I also had one of those cool Shelby jackets with the offset racing stripes. This all was spawned after riding in my pals' older brothers' Sunbeam Tiger and sneaking home with his Sports Car Graphic magazines. The 1960's were the best of times to be a kid!
I don’t know much about Le mans or GT40s but somewhat local to me is a museum with a couple. They take them out back on occasion and race them around the parking lot. They were driving the Daytona when I was there last. It’s worth checking out if in the Philly area https://simeonemuseum.org/
I believe the Daytona Coupe in the Monkees video I posted above, is the same car that is in the Simeone museum. It was at one time owned by music producer Phil Spector who apparently drove it on the street.
This is never seen before footage 1987 SVRA Summit Point Raceway,West Virginia Maybe somebody can tell which car this is From what I remember a car in front of the GT40 lost an engine and he spun in the oil
Actually, I'm very glad you have taken an interest in these cars, and have been doing a lot of research. I recently had a bunch of pictures deleted, of very interesting real-deal cars we are talking about- they will probably be safe in your thread. To begin with, I watched these cars run, in person, in the day- I even have some slides of the cars running and in the paddock at Watkins Glen. This is my admission ticket from 1965 that I still have I also still have the old Sports Car Graphic, Road & Track, Car & Driver etc. magazines with the actual race coverages, all the classics, Daytona Continental, Sebring, LeMans, etc., pits flooded at Sebring with tires floating away, the really great articles with cutaway drawings and complete specs of the '66 GT40 MKII and the Porsche Carrera 6. I also still have my race programs from the Glen (and one from the Can-Am/ Trans-Am race at Mosport in '67- my dad and I were on that hill just before Start/Finish in that GT40 prototype pic earlier- first year of the "orange" McLaren M6 cars. One could say I am slightly versed on these cars. I recently was lucky enough to be invited to a 60th Anniversary Anniversary Celebration of Shelby American, to which everyone (still alive) who was involved at Shelby in the day was invited, flown in, wined and dined and hoteled for the weekend, with a separate employees only dinner the night before the main event. They moved enough cars around to make room for the dinner tables, and the show was on. I think you will find this interesting. And, with a couple exceptions, these are the real-deal cars. That is the actual Ken Miles/ Denny Hulme 1966 LeMans car- real deal The Bucknum/ Hutcherson #5 1966 LeMans car- third place. The #2 McLaren/ Amon car was not there This is the real deal Essex Wire 427 Comp Cobra, one of the cars I watched at the Glen as a kid. In my boxes of slides, I have a pic of their GT40 MKI on the trailer in the paddock in '67. BTW, Ed Lowther saw me grinning like an idiot at the Glen 500 on '67, and let me sit in his 427 Comp car (not this one) This is a tribute car of a "J Car", which was a turd, but was rebodied and became the MKIV Cobra #1- the real deal Dan Gurney's very rapid Lotus 19- "The Rabbit" The dented trunk and broken windshield movie car repro Gee, whatzat? Movie car. Sunbeam Tiger next door Highlight of the night, met a piece of history, and he signed my nametag- Peter Brock Illustration on the wall of my buddy "The Aimer" in the original Dragonsnake- he was one of the honored employees My old buddy Walter Cantrell had 3 427 Cobras in the 70's, and also GT40 P1009, the original Peter Sutcliffe privateer race car, one of the first ones built, and was cloned when wrecked- he had the original. I got to for a street ride in that one, still had LeMans gears, and we were well over 150 when we ran out of room, open exhaust, no plates lol... He also owned GT40 MKII P1012, again the original tub, not the clone, the one that Peter Revson crashed at Daytona practice- so he owned both of the original cars that were cloned after crashing. At the time, P1012 was completely stripped and whacked hard, but was the real deal tub, and has since been rebuilt- I sat in what was left of it behind his parents' house in Napa
I feel obliged to point out that three of the team drivers were Kiwis. McLaren Amon and Hulme. But then I am biased.
One thing to correct- the "an old truck motor", which is incorrect- that was the 348/409 Chebbies, truck engines adapted to car use. The "FT" truck version of the FE engine didn't come out until '64, with the trucks still using the Y-block stuff through '63, like the Lincoln Y-block style 302 and 332. I had a '63 F750 with the Y-332, and it was a tough SOB. The FE started out as a car engine in '58, didn't evolve from an old truck engine
For those unfamiliar with Grand Prix racing, any cast iron block v-8 of American origin is considered an “old truck” motor.
Yeah, OK lol- by who? What era of GP racing are you researching? They built some evil schidt pre-WWII. Someday I can tell you a true story about champagne for the USGP and a Motor Maid who saved the day
A few years back when FoMoCo brought out the "new & improved" version of the GT 40 the local dealer had one (on display only) One of the salesmen told me ONLY the owner of the dealership or his son was allowed to put the car up at night and bring it out in the morning. Needless to say there were several disappointed car salesmen! I saw one up close & personal at the local carshow one Wednesday evening. A preppy young guy drove his GT 40 in and parked right next to his wife's Lambo!! I can't remember which one was a lawyer or the doctor.... I could tell they were really struggling.. 6sally6
I remember reading a quote that went along the lines of "...who do they think they are trying to compete with pushrod motors?" And one of their own, Allard, shocked and horrified the sports racing hoi polloi by winning races, "You mean the car with the lorry engine?" making note of him using Ardun flatties. We all know the Ardun stuff was originally for trucks. Sometimes the skid marks on the bloomers don't wash off.
The Jalopy Journal
