FORD GT 40 LE MANS 1966. Ford tried to buy Ferrari but failed. Then it tried to beat Ferrari at Le M

THE LOST WINNER Ford tried to buy Ferrari but failed. Then it tried to beat Ferrari at Le Mans in '64 but failed. It tried again in '65, only to fail again. Clearly its 1966 triumph was something rather special, the winning Mark 2 a motor car of great historical significance. Nevertheless, it got lost. Ronnie Spain helped find the GT40 13/1046. Here he tells its involved story.

At 4.00 pm on Saturday June 18 1966 a Ford GT40 Mark 2 - more particularly chas-sis number GT40 P/1046 - set off with 54 other cars to contest the 34th Le Mans 24 hour endurance race. 3009.35 miles later it led home two other Mark 2's in Ford's famous staged 1 - 2 - 3 finish. This is the story of GT40 P/1046. The 1966 Le Mans win was the culmina-tion of over three years of concerted effort by the Ford Motor Company which had begun back in 1963 when the decision had been taken to involve the company in long distance sports car racing - with the ultimate goal being the publicity a win at Le Mans would bring. After an almost successful at-tempt to buy an interest in Ferrari failed in May, Ford realised there was no other way than to build its own car for the task. A team of designers under Roy Lunn, including Eric Broadley, Len Bailey and Phil Remington was drawn together - and the car they produced less than a year later was the Ford GT40. Although in the early days it was known simply as the Ford GT, the 40 soon became officially tagged on, it being a reference to the car's forty inch height in the initial design studies. The car comprised a semi-monocoque chassis built from 024-029 inch sheet steel with square tube stiffening and a reinforced fibreglass body, with independent front and rear suspension - the front being double wishbone and the rear having upper and lower trailing arms with lower wishbone and transverse upper link. Powered initially by Ford's 256 cubic inch Indy engine with 4-speed Colotti transmissions, from the fifth chassis on the cars used 289 inch Cobra units matched with 5 speed ZF boxes. The first car was completed on April 1 1964 (and destroyed at the Le Mans trials on April 18) and a team of three cars was ready - in theory - for Le Mans in June. But there had been insufficient time for testing,especially of components, and the last of the three cars was out after only 131/2 hours. While these three cars and others contin-ued to test and race - unsuccessfully - for the rest of the season, the path which would eventually lead to 1046 winning Le Mans was already being trodden, for in July the go-ahead was given to build up two bare chassis already at Kar Kraft - a special performance unit set up by Ford in Detroit -to be powered by Ford's big 427 inch en-gine. The first of these cars GT/106 ran for the first time in mid-May, and second time out at Ford's Romeo Proving Ground it clocked 210 mph. It was decided to run it and its sister car GT/107 at Le Mans, by then only a month away.

Not surprisingly, however, it proved to be a repeat of the previous year, as the two new cars entered by Los Angeles, California, based Shelby American Inc., were once again virtually untested (in fact in 107's case totally un-tested, prior to its arrival at the track) with 106 retiring in the fifth hour with a broken transmission and 107 - admittedly outlast-ing all the other GT40's in the race - retiring with a broken engine after only 6 hours 45 minutes. Despite this dismal showing it was consid-ered worth one more attack on Le Mans and by early August new bare chassis for com-pletion as 427 powered cars, now officially to be known as Mark 2's, had begun to arrive in pairs from Slough in England, while the test programme recommenced with 106 and 107. And as the season progressed many improvements were implemented in the areas of transmission, brakes and cool-ing systems for the engine and transaxle. In addition, following the chassis breakage occurring at the lower front suspension pick up points of 106 while testing at Daytona in August (although this was chiefly felt to be as a result of it being one of a batch of four lighter gauge steel cars) the chassis of all future Mark 2's would be reinforced in these heavily stressed areas. Early December saw the completion of the first two new Mark 2's, GT40 P/1011 and 1012. The whole front of the new Mark 2 had been reworked and was now clothed in a body section basically of 1965 GT40 production type, widened and deepened to allow for the bigger tyres. On January 17 1966 the ranks of Mark 2's in the pro-gramme swelled to eight with the arrival at Shelby-American of GT40 P/1046 and 1047 as bare chassis on slave wheels and tyres. By the time the Daytona 24 Hours came along in February the entry list included five of the new Mark 2's, two of which were entered by Holman and Moody, a new team recruited to the ranks. And at last thing started to go Ford's way with only one Mark 2 failing to finish and the others, headed by GT40 P/1015, coming home 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th. This was followed by a 1st and 2nd at Sebring from a four car entry and even a 2nd at Spa with a single Mark 2 entry which was still running its Le Mans gears - it being the surviving car from the Le Mans Trials at which the other Mark 2 had been destroyed in Walt Hansgen's fatal accident. And so - once again - to Le Mans. But this time, for the first time, with a line-up of eight cars built to a tried and tested configuration. 1046 along with 1015 and 1047 were en-tered by Shelby-American, 1016, 1031 and 1032 by Holman and Moody, and XGT-1 and XGT-2 by Alan Mann from England, with 1012 and XGT-3 as spares. 1046 had flown to France on June 1 and had first run on May 22 back at Riverside in a one hour Le Mans shakedown.

It was finished in black with twin white stripes and housed engine number AX-316-1-41. When the eight Mark 2's took their places on the grid for the traditional Le Mans start on Saturday June 18 it was with 1046 fourth in line behind three other Mark 2's, with a qualifying time set by Bruce McLaren - co-driving with Chris Amon - of 1 m. 32.6 s., exactly 2 s. slower than Dan Gurney's pole time in the bright red 1047. This time it was Ford's race almost all the way for after the flag was dropped, appro-priately by Henry Ford II, only five cars ever held the lead - and four of them were Mark 2's. Initially Graham Hill led in XGT-2, the silver Alan Mann car, but third time round

pole man Dan Gurney was in front in the ca he shared with Jerry Grant and for the fire five hours either they or Miles/Hulme ii 1015, the pale blue Shelby car, led the racy - except for a few laps at around 11/2 hour when the first fuel stops temporarily hander the lead to the 330P3 Ferrari of Rodrigue2 Ginther. The same Ferrari led again a 10.00 pm when the Ford's started pitting fc routine brake pad changes, but by 11.01 pm Miles/Hulme were in front again and b midnight the Gurney/Grant car was 'yip second. By 2.00 am the two leaders had ex changed and re-exchanged places and through the Esses - two Shelby-American cars (104, ahead) chase a Ferrari P4 in the early stages of the 1966 race. The Ferrari had a more sophisticated engine but lacked sheer cubic capacity.

been joined in third spot by McLaren/Amon in 1046. Initially running eighth, 1046 had spent the last four hours running fourth or fifth. A few laps later any threat the Fords had, apart from their own reliability, was over with the retirement from fourth place of the Rodriguez/Ginther Ferrari. This also moved Bucknum/Hutcherson in Holman and Moody's gold 1016 into fourth. The next few hours saw no change in the top four places but by 8.00 am, two-thirds distance, McLaren/Amon had taken over the lead in 1046 from Gurney/Grant and Miles/Hulme. Bucknum/Hutcherson were still running fourth. The only real blow Ford suffered from here on was the retirement at 9.30 am with overheating of the Gurney/Grant car which had again retaken the lead. This still left Ford in a very strong position however, and for the next 41/2 hours it was the Mark 2's of McLaren/Amon, Miles/Hulme and Bucknum/Hutcherson which led Le Mans and it began to look as if this might be the line-up till the finish. However, with two hours to go and as rain began to fall, it was again Miles/Hulme who headed the leader board. But if Ford were not to suffer any further blows, the same could not be said for two of their drivers, Miles and Hulme. For back-stage it had been decided to hold a staged finale, bunching all three cars up for a dead-heat finish for the tremendous publicity impact it would have, and as the race drew to a close the drivers were instructed ac-cordingly. So the spectators were treated to the sight of three Mark 2's circling to-gether for the last few laps before their final approach, lights ablaze through the rain, to take the chequered flag, with Miles easing off at the last minute to let McLaren catch him at the line. So Ford had finally won Le Mans and pulled off a tremendous publicity stunt in the process - but they had also robbed Ken Miles, already the victor at Daytona and Sebring, of an incredible triple crown. For a dead-heat turned out to be an impossibility, as in such an event the car which had started further back in the grid - in this case McLaren/Amon's 1046 - would obviously have covered a greater distance. So Miles/ Hulme were relegated to second place with the Kiwis in 1046 declared the outright winners of the 34th Le Mans 24 hour endur-ance race. A sad epitaph to this was Ken Miles's tragic death two months later while testing a J car for Ford. The seeds of confusion which until re-cently shrouded the fate of Ford's first Le Mans winner were sown soon after the race in several ways. Firstly, in America two of the other 1966 Le Mans Mark 2's - GT40 P/ 1032 and XGT-3 - were turned into looka-likes of the winning car and used on the show circuit. 1032 in fact later became the main source of confusion as it remained in its lookalike trim and gradually seemed to adopt the mantle of "Le Mans Winner" -despite the fact that its stripes were white rather than silver. Meanwhile in England Ford UK's linden green former press car GT40 P/1008 had also been turned into a 1046 clone and had joined the show circuit, although it was strictly a non-running ex-ample. The confusion surrounding 1046's fate was then further fuelled by 1046 itself, for far from being cosseted as a Le Mans winner, it in fact became the main test hack for the following season. Its first outing (now fitted with engine number AX-316-1-49 which had clocked up four hours at Le Mans in the Foyt/Bucknum Holman and Moody prepared 1032, before its transmis-sion blew) was only a short undocumented pre-test on October 31 in advance of the first serious test of the programme at River-side Raceway in Arizona from November 7 - 16.

This saw 1046 running alongside J-3, the latest of the J cars, Ford's alternative to the Mark 2. These cars were manufactured by a technique more associated with air-craft construction than that of racing cars, the chassis being fabricated from adhesive bonded aluminium honeycomb sandwich sections - the aluminium used being of 016 inch thickness. These cars were consid-erably lighter than the Mark 2's and had a lot of backing in the Ford echelons - which would prove well founded when the succes-sor to the J car, the Mark 4, won Le Mans in 1967. But meanwhile back to Riverside. Most of 1046's track time was taken up with comparisons of manual and automatic transmissions and testing various brake configurations, and in fact due to bad weather and track availability only six days of testing were possible. Main test drivers were Lloyd Ruby and A J Foyt with 73 and 57 laps respectively, but Bruce McLaren also turned in 25 laps and Mario Andretti a further three. This total of 158 laps was 43 more than the J car managed and the Mark 2's performance was also better. The main conclusion of the test regarding 1046 was that a lightweight body would have to be made for the Mark 2 as the car was far too heavy. The Riverside test brought the end of Shelby-American's involvement with 1046, for immediately afterwards it was handed over to Holman and Moody for preparation for the next test in the programme, a 17 day stint at Daytona commencing December 5. And the Charlotte, North Carolina, outfit really set about their new ward, for when it rolled out into the Florida sunshine it was a much changed car - except for still being in its black and silver livery. The most obvious changes were a seven inch reduction in the length of the tail - nothing to do with aerody-namics, just a way of reducing the car's weight - and the removal of the rear deck

engine vent and brake air scoops, panels now being riveted over the holes, but a further 27 modifications had been carried out with the most significant reading as follows:-1, The weight saved by the shortened tail had been drastically made up by the instal-lation of a roll cage made out of 13/4 inch diameter 90 gauge steel tubing. 2, The normal fibreglass dash panel had gone, in favour of an aluminium panel in front of the driver which housed all the gauges, with a further angled panel to the left which grouped all the switches together, close to the driver's left hand. 3, The central tunnel which housed the water pipes had been removed and the pipes relocated well away from the driver down the left side of the cockpit. 4, The battery had been relocated behind the passenger's seat - along with all the electrical components, mounted on a com-mon panel. 5, The fuel pumps were now submerged. Drivers for 1046 were again Foyt and Ruby and although they only clocked up 14 hours running time between them, with the car suffering various problems which in-cluded alternator failure, water pump fail-ure, fuel pick-up problems and gear selec-tion difficulties. However the car's perform-ance along with that of Shelby's team spare 1015 - brought in when J-3 was laid up for repairs - was sufficient to convince Ford to stick with a team of Mark 2's to get the 1967 season underway. The weekend of February 4 - 5 saw 1046 taking part in its second - and as it would prove, last - race, the Daytona 24 hours. One of a three car Holman and Moody team, it differed little internally from its December test trim apart from having one of the new twin four-barrel Holley carburetted inon-headed engines - in its case number AX-316-2-86. The new engine weighed 80 lbs more than its aluminium-headed prede-cessor, but produced 530 bhp, 45 more than the unit which won Le Mans. Out-wardly, however, the car had changed quite a bit. The rear deck brake air scoops and engine vent had reappeared and were mounted once again on a standard length (though much lighter, as was the whole body of the car) tail section which now incorporated a moulded-in contoured lip as on the GT40 production car, rather than the previous screw mounted flat adjustable spoiler. In addition 1046's livery had re-versed as it was now finished in silver with twin black pinstripes. The Daytona 24 hours, however, was not to be 1046's race, or for that matter the race of any of the other Mark 2's as a faulty batch of transmissions - including nine spares, all of which were used - claimed the cars one by one with only Shelby's yellow 1012 making it to the flag in seventh place cour-tesy of a transmission from an earlier batch snaffled from a test car Ford still had at the track. 1046, driven once again by Lloyd Ruby, this time teamed with Denis Hulme, lasted till dawn and was the fourth Mark 2 to chew up its replacement transmission. After the Daytona debacle the J car proj-ect began to gain momentum and most of the effort was concentrated in that direction. However, the Mark 2 was still considered a worthwhile bet and 1046 was one of three Holman and Moody prepared cars (the others being 1012 and 1016) which were back at Daytona on March 21 for the start of a week long test session. Once again much had changed in 1046's configuration since its previous outing. The whole front of the car looked different with the forward radiator air exit opened up with the removal of the bottom bar, and the brake ducts on either side covered over -the air now being picked up behind the radiator. The passenger door had been cut away to allow a luggage box to be relocated (the spare wheel later moved to the space vacated in the tail). The rear spoiler had reverted to the older screw mounted adjust-able style and the rear wings had been reshaped. In this trim all three cars were basically in Mark 2B configuration, but the term was not officially designated until the following month at Sebring. Again Ruby was the principal driver, joined on this occasion by Skip Scott and Peter Revson. Regular drivers of the suc-cessful Essex Wire entered GT4Os back in 1966, this would be their first taste of the 427 powered version.

And they didn't get much of a taste, as 1046 accounted for only five hours of track time over the five days with 1012 managing even less and 1016 only clocking up 130 laps, 127 fewer than the only Mark 4 in attendance - as the new aerodynamically clothed J car was now officially known. (1012 might have clocked up more track time but for the unfortunate Peter Revson all but destroying it in a spec-tacular accident when the car went airborne after a tyre burst. Incredibly, and thanks to the new roll cage, Revson escaped almost unhurt). And that Daytona test proved to be the end of 1046's active involvement in the Ford racing programme, for while 1016 went on to take part in the Le Mans trials, 1046 was never used again. Instead it sat in Holman and Moody's workshops and was gradually stripped down, initially as parts were re-quired for cars which were still being used in the programme. Eventually, as not much more than a bare chassis and with nothing (and no-one) to suggest its former glory as a Le Mans winner, it was sold off to David Brown in Tampa, Florida. The car was then built up in almost Mark 2A trim and finished in a very pale metallic green. It was next sold to Eo Zamerelli in Cleve-land, Ohio, who then had Holman and Moody's Freddy McCall - who had done most of the original rebuild - reconstruct it as a luxury road car complete with a dash-mounted closed-circuit rear view TV moni-tor, the camera for which was strapped to the central bar of the roll cage (cut away down the left hand side for the purpose). The camera looked back through a neatly formed if rather incongruous looking bubble fitted to the centre rear of the roof. Colour was a vivid metalflake gold.

This then was the rather ignominious fate of Ford's first Le Mans winner. But not for long, as the car then moved to Steve Juda in New York - and then back once again to Freddy McCall whom Juda commissioned to put it back in standard Mark 2 trim. However, half-way through the work the car was sold yet again and the new owner called a halt to the rebuild. Eventually, in 1980, it was acquired by Bob Richmond in New York (in a deal which included 1074 and J-4) and was crated up and shipped out to Belgium for storage as an investment, until its sale on November 8 1983 (again along with 1074 and J-4) to George Stauf-fer, a Wisconsin based businessman and fast rising star of the American classic car dealer network. Stauffer recruited the help of the author to find if what he was buying was indeed the Le Mans winner, and although it was no simple task, through the meticulous records which were kept of all the Shelby-American and Holman and Moody testing modifica-tions to the car, and after exhaustive photo-graphic research the proof finally came together. George still owns 1046 but has as yet done little to it. But the search for the necessary parts goes on relentlessly and some day, hopefully not too far in the future, GT40 P/1046 will once again appear in the trim in which it won Le Mans for the Ford Motor Company on June 19 1966.