Le Mans, 2nd-3rd April 1966

The provision of a weekend of use of the La Sarthe Circuit in early April is now well established and apart from allowing entrants to do serious testing, it allows the organisation to get into its stride in readiness for the 24-hour classic in June.

With 30,000 spectators attending there was more than enough opportunity for the organisation to get in some practice at control and order. However, the race organisation had nothing like as much work to do as only 24 cars turned out over the entire weekend, and at times there was a mere handful circulating. At the last moment Ferrari announced that he would not be sending any factory cars, saying that he could do all the high-speed testing he needed at Monza instead. As Jim Hall’s Chaparral did not arrive, this left the Ford entries on their own with no one to evaluate themselves to.

Shelby American came with three 7-litre cars, run in close co-operation with Dearborn and the new J-car was wholly Dearborn. Alan Mann had two modified GT40 Fords with 4.7-litre engines and there were numerous privately owned production GT40 models. Apart from a standard GTO Ferrari run by two Frenchmen, the Maranello fortunes were upheld by the yellow 375 P2 of Ecurie Francorchamps, this being a 1965 car with 1966-style bodywork, and 4.4-litre single camshaft per bank of cylinders engine. Although the Fords appeared to dominate the scene this lone Ferrari was going extremely well driven by ‘Beurlys’ (Jean Blaton) and was putting in lap times in amongst the Fords, though not as fast as the 7-litre cars.

“Anybody who thinks Fords are lumps of ironmongery should study the J-car closely”

The Alan Mann team had two 4.7-litre Fords, modified with aluminium body panels in place of fibre-glass and numerous small weight-saving efforts that made them 120lb lighter. Finished in red with gold stripes the cars were as raced at Sebring, still carrying the quick-action oil pipe connectors protruding from the offside of the body through which oil could be squirted straight into the sump during a pit-stop. The drivers sharing these two cars were Graham Hill, Stewart, Whitmore, Gardner and Hawkins. Privately owned Fords of Ford-France, with Greder/Ligier and Scuderia Filipinetti with Mairesse/Muller were representing Detroit in the sports category.

In the 2-litre category there was great interest, for Porsche were being strongly challenged by the new Matra-BRM driven by Jo Schlesser and by the end of the weekend this lone Anglo-French car was quite a bit faster than the cars from Stuttgart. It had been a rush to get the angular coupé finished in time and it was covered with a hasty grey undercoat. In a conventional tubular space-frame a 2-litre BRM V8 engine, complete with Lucas fuel-injection, is mounted behind the cockpit and coupled to a 5-speed ZF gearbox/differential. All round independent suspension, of conventional grand prix lines, is used and the car did not seem to suffer from any handling problems or high-speed aerodynamic problems. It was lapping at close to 130mph, which was remarkable in view of its seemingly un-aerodynamic shape, though in fact the shape was developed in Matra’s windtunnel, the body being designed around the Le Mans regulations, but being devoid of holes and scoops, which may explain something. Undoubtedly the BRM V8 was powerful, probably well over 250bhp.

“The Ford entries had nobody to evaluate themselves against”

The works Porsches, driven by Linge and Nocker, were sounding terrific and will certainly be running at the end of the 24-hours if their performances at Daytona and Sebring are anything to go by. Linge’s car was running on fuel-injection and carried a flow-meter in the passenger’s seat, while it also had a slimmer nose cowling and on Sunday did some experiments with a long tail attached to the standard tail. A third Carrera 6 was that of the French entrant Veuillet, driven by Robert Buchet. The works team were also running a standard 911 coupé, which looked very out of place amongst the exciting Le Mans coupés.

The French Alpine–Renault team was out in force with 1300cc and 1000cc cars and a whole list of drivers headed by Mauro Bianchi and Henri Grandsire. The cars were unchanged outwardly from 1965, being mid-engined coupés with long tails, on space-frames, using F3/F2-type suspension and Hewland gearboxes. The Gordini designed 2 OHC 4-cylinder engines built by Renault were giving a lot more power and Bianchi lapped at 125mph with the 1300cc car and was as quick as Buchet’s Porsche Carrera 6.

Another small French car that was interesting, if not very fast, was a new CD built by Charles Deutsch. It was a rather odd-shaped coupé with a Peugeot 204 engine mounted transversely behind the driver and driving the rear wheels through the Peugeot transmission, modified to five speeds.

The lack of any factory Ferrari opposition to Ford, or the European appearance of the Chaparral, took a lot of the excitement away from testing, but those that came had plenty to do, especially as Dunlop, Goodyear and Firestone were in evidence and most teams were experimenting with more than one make of tyre.