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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

So much has been said and written about the motivations behind Ford’s call to stage the finish of the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours. Tim Considine considers an alternate angle, and what follows is an extract from his book, Twice Around The Clock – Yanks at Le Mans.

When Ken Miles brought his car in for service and a driver change, he was informed of the plan. Miles was crushed. And furious. To him, this was revenge by those at Ford who didn’t like him. Busy with the car, Charlie Agapiou heard none of this, but when he looked up, immediately he knew something was wrong.

Two race drivers with trophies and bouquets on podium beside official under IBM sign, black and white photo.

Henry Ford II on the middle of the podium without a care in the world, even if his drivers were bemused by the result

“Ken said, ‘They don’t want me to win the race. They want the Amon/McLaren car to win.’ I said, ‘Ken, what are you talking about? You’re miles ahead of them, how are they going to win the race?’ You gonna’ stop on the back chute or what? That’s impossible.’

But Miles was told the dead-heat finish had been okayed by the ACO. To refuse to cooperate would mean the end of his career with Ford, so grudgingly, he agreed to go along with it, perhaps even believing that he had one or more laps in hand and that it would be for appearances only. But had that lap advantage disappeared with a suspect brake disc change?

Earlier, Hulme had brought their car in for scheduled brake change. Multiple sets of bedded-in rotors (discs) were prepared in advance by the crew chiefs of each car. The new rotors were fitted and Miles took off, still laps ahead of McLaren. But then, trouble. Miles brought the MkII back in the next lap. Agapiou was there.

“Ken said, ‘I’ve got a vibration, a brake vibration.’ I said, ‘It can’t be a brake vibration, it must be the tires.’ He said, ‘I’m telling you, it’s a brake vibration.’”

“Ken slowed to let McLaren catch up on the final lap”

Knowing the rotors had been bedded in, Agapiou threw on a new set of wheels and tires and Miles was sent out. Only then did Agapiou learn that the rotors he’d been given were not in fact the ones bedded in for Miles’ car. Those had been taken by the McLaren crew. There was no time to find out why. Miles was on his way in again, and another set of rotors had to be fitted. Agapiou was livid.

“We ended up having to get two more rotors and hoping they were okay. In that time, Ken lost close to two laps, I think. All this poncin’ around, because McLaren’s crew chief, who was a good friend of mine, didn’t take the time to bed rotors in and put them aside for when his car came in. And McLaren ended up with our rotors.”

Thinking about it later, Agapiou suspected foul play.

Denny Hulme and Jack Brabham in pits at 1966 Le Mans

Miles and Hulme in the pits. Ken was outraged by Ford’s decision to ask him to slow, even before brake rotors became an apparent sabotage

“Ken was close to four laps ahead of McLaren. So there was no way he could have just slowed down for four laps. It would have looked stupid with the bloody press. I don’t know what went on, but he lost a ton of time with those two stops.”

In any case, the fix was now on near the end of the race. McLaren and Miles were told they’d finish in a dead-heat and that both would be declared winner. What no one was told was that the ACO changed their mind – and had notified Ford officials – that there could be no dead-heat.

As instructed, Ken Miles slowed to let McLaren catch up on the final lap, and for Hutcherson in his and Bucknum’s third MkII. As they approached the actual timing line, short of where the flag is thrown, Miles and McLaren seemed to be nearly side-by-side before Miles inexplicably checked up, allowing McLaren to surge ahead – then Miles pulled forward again.

Carroll Shelby with Ford GT40s lined up at 1966 Le Mans

Shelby felt robbed and claims Miles and Hulme were the rightful winners

It’s fair to say that, like the French PA announcer, most initially believed Miles had won. He’d led so much of the race and obviously slowed to let McLaren and Hutcherson catch up at the end, and when Hulme climbed aboard, their No. 1 car certainly looked like the winner.

Though first back to the podium, the No. 1 car was stopped and officials waved the Amon/McLaren car ahead – just as the PA announcer now proclaimed them the winners. And so it stood, with an almost uncomfortable McLaren and Amon and a joyous Henry Ford II on the podium, joined only later by Miles and Hulme.

[Carroll] Shelby was unequivocal.

“Ken Miles was way ahead of the race. He would have been the only man in history to win Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans. He should have won it.”

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Charlie Agapiou, too, remained adamant that his friend was robbed, and pulled no punches as to where the blame lay.

“He did exactly what he was told, and at the end, he slowed down on the back chute and all over the place to let McLaren unlap himself. He followed his orders and then he got f***ed for it. That’s what happened.”

It was a bitter irony that two months later Ken Miles, was killed testing a prototype of the ultimate designed-and-made-in-USA Ford racecar with which Briggs Cunningham’s dream of a totally American car driven to victory at Le Mans by American drivers would finally be realized.

Extract taken from Twice Around The Clock – The Yanks at Le Mans, Tim Considine, ISBN: 978-0-9993953-1-8

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

The 24-hour race at Le Mans is now six weeks old and the vast American armada that came over and slaughtered “poor little Ferrari,” to use Enzo’s own words, has long since returned to the United States. But for numerous reasons I feel justified in referring back to that event and to the report that appeared in the July Motor Sport. With the race being held at the time that our printers normally have the magazine on the printing presses, everything was done in a rush, and older readers had to get out their magnifying glasses to read the tiny print.

Even so, the report was skimped and there was no room to express opinions or enlarge on any of the interesting points that arose during the 24 hours’ racing, while the inevitable inaccuracies crept in, that might have been avoided a day or two afterwards. When you have been up all night the brain is not all that clear and by 7pm on Sunday evening, when the weather had turned wet and dismal, it was easy to overlook things.

The big thing that was overlooked by a great many was that it made no difference what the Fords of McLaren/Amon and Miles/Hulme were doing as they got the chequered flag, for the race had finished at 4pm exactly, not when they arrived at the finishing line. Timekeepers can only work on car numbers and time readings as recorded at each crossing of the timing line, so with a race that is measured on time and not distance they cannot hope to know exactly where all the competitors are as the official clock reaches 4pm.

In such a long race it is unusual for the first and second car to be on the same lap so there is seldom any discussion about who is the winner, but it is open to calculation or estimation as to exactly where each car is at precisely 4pm on Sunday afternoon. Unless a car arrives at the timing line exactly at 4pm it must have covered a certain number of whole laps plus a portion of a lap, and most drivers try to judge their last lap to make the portion as near as possible to a complete lap. The timekeepers calculate the position of each car on the last lap by taking the time for the penultimate lap and assuming that the car keeps up the same average speed for the last lap.

If a car arrives at the finishing line one minute after 4pm then it is credited with its total number of laps recorded at 4pm, plus the portion of a lap it would have covered during the time of its penultimate lap less one minute, at an average speed the same as its penultimate lap. All this is written in the regulations and the numerous loop-holes or errors in the system are covered and generally speaking it gives a fair result.

In the case of the two Fords their penultimate lap was done in close company so their lap times must have been identical. As they were on the same total number of laps the timekeepers could only credit them with the same extra portion of a lap, so that as far as the timing clocks were concerned at 4pm the two Fords were somewhere between Arnage corner and the finish and since 4pm on Saturday they had covered exactly the same distance, except that they had not started side-by-side, Miles had been 20 metres ahead of McLaren on the line-up at the start, so therefore McLaren had covered that 20 metres more than Miles as 4pm on Sunday was reached.

“McLaren was the winner, whether he wanted to be or not”

What happened at 1sec or even 1min after 4pm on Sunday was of no interest to the timekeepers, for the race had finished. In actual fact the McLaren car crossed the finishing line something like a length in front of the Miles car, but Ken Miles was making it very obvious that he was holding back on orders. One of our keener readers was above the pits of the Shelby team, which is closest to the finishing line, and wrote very strongly to point this out, but, as I have said earlier, the race was officially already over, and McLaren was the winner whether he wanted to be or not. In the Shelby pits the team knew about the rules regarding “portions of the last lap before 4pm” and about the dead-heat rule, so there should not have been any confusion, but when you have been awake from 8am on Saturday morning it is not surprising that one’s thoughts are not too clear by 4pm on Sunday.

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In order to fox the timekeepers and the rules completely you would have to arrange for your two cars to do their penultimate laps at different average speeds, so that the difference in mph when translated into distance would nullify the distance they were apart on the starting line, and if you could do that you would deserve a dead-heat, although I am sure the Timekeepers’ Federation would still produce a trump card from somewhere. It might be worth sparing a thought for the timekeepers next year at Le Mans.

The actual time recording is done automatically by each car being fitted with a battery-operated ‘bleeper’ that sends out signals all the time. As the car passes the timekeepers’ building it records its passage and the signals are fed into a vast electrical machine that ticks away absorbing all this information, and eventually spews out a sheet of paper with the complete race situation, on time and laps. This electronic masterpiece is by IBM but it can suffer mental blocks and, of course, it lacks vision. The result is that a car can be recorded as having done a certain number of laps in a given time, which would put it in 10th place for example, even though it blew up or crashed minutes before. Until the 11th place car does more laps for the given time, then the 10th car stays in the race, even though the unfortunate driver may be in hospital.

On paper a car can often be proved to be in third or even second place; when you know perfectly well it has been in the dead-car park for 15 minutes with a broken crankshaft! In the small hours of the morning this can be most confusing if you are watching the race itself. A year or two ago the IBM machine got the hiccoughs or something and produced printed results at 5pm, 6pm, 7pm and so on that bore no resemblance to what was happening out on the circuit, and you did not need a lap chart one hour after the start to realise that the electronics had gone wrong.

This year the IBM machine got an attack of the collywobbles for it produced a sheet that was headed “Race position at 1 hour 15” and the time for the leading car was 1h 13m.23.4s! It then went really to pieces and printed excellent results sheets at 2hr, 3hr and so on, except that someone must have jogged its elbow for 95% of the letters and figures were illegible, and people who wanted to know the instant situation of the race were going berserk for they had a splendid official piece of paper that was unreadable. I am happy to say that after a short period of nothing at all, which was more satisfactory than something you could not read, the electronics functioned normally and all was well. You may think that drivers in the Le Mans race have a lot of drama, but they are not alone, believe me.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

When Ford so convincingly dominated the Le Mans 24 Hours this year European journalists with a bias towards Ferrari wrote about the might of Detroit and described in detail why the Ford driver Miles, who had intended to dead-heat with his Ford team-mate, wasn’t given the win when the tie was disallowed.

Not unnaturally, perhaps, the American monthly Road & Track has been considering how it can justify the Ford victory. Its John R. Bond points out that although the Fords had 7-litre engines, against Ferrari’s 4-litre, they were rocker-arm Stock units, but with alloy heads, and used a single 4-choke carburetter. Whereas Ferrari used a twin OHC V12 engine.

Road & Track quotes the standard NASCAR Ford engine as giving over 520bhp, with a single carburetter and the Le Mans power units as being a detuned version developing about 475bhp. As, says Bond, the Ferraris were around 600lb lighter than the Fords, and had a smaller frontal area and smoother lines, they gave away very little speed to the Fords, in spite of being down by 50-75bhp. He quotes the 1966 Le Mans Fords as slower than in 1965 – capable of over 200mph but not the 218mph top speeds seen on the straight during the 1965 race.

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Having equalised the rivals technically. Bond turns his attention to the myth of the mighty dollar. He suggests that the claim that Ford spent 9 million dollars to win this year at Le Mans applies to its racing expenditure since 1964. He says, further, that Ferrari has also spent lots of dough on this race, more, argues Bond, provided one equates labour costs at a proper ratio, Ferrari having admitted that an F1 car costs him 30,000 dollars, and a sports/racing car costing as much if not more.

Bond finishes up by reminding us that Briggs Cunningham must have spent close on 5 million dollars trying to win at Le Mans with his own team effort, and that was over 10 years ago.

“The point is,” he concludes, “that it seems unfair to criticise Ford for beating the old man of Maranello just because they could afford to do it.”

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

When Ford relaunched its iconic GT supercar, one tick on the options list stood out. The ‘Heritage’ edition, painted black and white in honour of the original 1964 GT40. And you might think it an odd car to celebrate given that at Le Mans that year its brand new car failed so badly in its sworn mission to beat Ferrari at its own game that two of its three entries were out before sundown, while the third barely made it past half distance.

Of course these were early cars and Le Mans was always likely to provide a steep learning curve, but even so, it’s not as if it was developed without considerable financial backing or that it was itself an exactly brand new design. In fact it was inspired, influenced by and, to a very great extent, based upon a car that had raced at Le Mans the year before. And this was a car built on a shoestring, driven to the circuit which still lasted until the early hours of Sunday morning. It was fast too, and according to one of its drivers, it could and, indeed should have gone the distance.

I refer to the silent hero of the GT40 story, Eric Broadley’s Lola Mk6 GT. At the time Lola was a tiny company but Broadley was a genius engineer and highly competitive driver himself, just like his rival Colin Chapman. And the GT was something of a miracle machine… Really. It wasn’t the first mid-engined sports racing car as some have claimed – Porsche had been making those for a decade – but it was the first at least of which I am aware – that combined the inherently lightweight and compact dimensions of a mid-engined racing car with the power of a bloody great V8 motor, beating even Chapman’s brutal Lotus 30.

“The Lola Mk6 GT was something of a miracle machine… really”

What’s more it had a monocoque chassis where its rivals remained wedded to ageing spaceframe technology, and it carried its engine as a fully stressed member, three years before the technique came to Formula 1. After one steel prototype, for the two production cars that followed that monocoque would be made from aluminium too.

With independent suspension at each corner, a Ford Fairlane-derived 260cu-in V8 motor and a proprietary four-speed Colotti dog box, the car was first shown at the London Racing Car Show in January of 1963. To Broadley it could scarcely have been more important: having been successful in Formula Junior racing but far less so in Formula 1, this was his chance to break into the big business world of sports car racing.

The car was to make its debut at Le Mans and was to be driven by two of Broadley’s protégés, David Hobbs and Richard Attwood. Hobbs, a year older than the 23-year-old Attwood, had first raced at Le Mans the year before, winning his class with Frank Gardner in a Lotus Elite; but for Richard, it was his first visit to La Sarthe.

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“It was such an important race for Eric,” he says today. “He bet everything on it but the race car was so late David and I were finishing it off in Bob Rushbrook’s garage when it was meant to be at Le Mans. In the end Eric told us to go without it so that at least we’d be ready when it turned up. Eric then drove it himself to the track – it broke down twice on the way – but when he got there he was so late scrutineering was over. But they were so impressed by this tiny little car with its big engine they agreed to let us race.”

But without time to test and barely any spares, the car was never going to give a full account of itself. “It turns out we had completely the wrong gear ratios,” Richard remembers with some estimates suggesting it was 30mph down on top speed as a result. “We had no different springs to try, no roll bars, nothing. We literally raced the car Eric drove into the circuit.”

Collage with vintage race car number 6 leading number 12 on track and pit area views, black and white photo.

The little Lola gave Ferrari a fight before the gearbox gave up and caused a crash

Which, with a brand new, unproven design, with a big engine behind the driver and no time to set it up sounded like a recipe for a nightmare followed by a disaster; but that was not the case. “I don’t remember having any problems with it at all,” says Richard. “It was quick, had excellent handling and I think with the right gearing we could have gone really well.” Hobbs himself recalls doing the second-fastest lap of the entire race in the middle of the night. But then at 5:00am the already troublesome Colotti box played up again and stuck David in the wall at the Esses and its race was run.

“At the time it seemed like the future of the Lola company rested on that car”

Richard: “The gears were changed by three cables, and they got muck in them and it started to become very difficult to change gear, so you had to be incredibly careful. But David missed a downshift going into the Esses and that was that.”

He remains rueful on the point to this day, not because it denied him a finish at his first Le Mans but “because at the time it seemed the future of the company rested on that car. Eric didn’t have any money and I felt responsible for bringing it home. A finish would have been amazing for Lola.”

Ford GT40 number 9 with white body and wire wheels parked on paved road, black and white photo.

The genetics are clear in Ford’s 1964 GT40 prototype

As we know, happily it all turned out fine. Having seen it perform at Le Mans Ford was not blind to the potential of the little Lola. Additionally its own plans to build a Ferrari-beater were going nowhere fast. With no hope of its stated aim of being on the grid at Le Mans in 1964 being realised without finding a way of bridging the gap from where it was to where it needed to be the Lola’s appearance in France could not have been more timely. Ford bought both cars and employed Broadley to work with Roy Lunn, who was already on the Dearborn payroll to use the technology – the monocoque, the V8, the Colotti box and so on and turn it into the GT40. Even the GT40’s most famous feature, doors cut deep into the roofline were a design not of Ford, but Lola.

Which is how a tiny English sports car built on microscopic budget sowed the seed from which the GT40 was grown and which would, in time change the course of sports car history.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

Le Mans ’66 is often celebrated as La Sarthe’s most memorable race, and still serves as the sporting pinnacle of Ford’s automotive might. The sight of three GT40s sailing across the finishing line, led by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon’s black No2 entry, has come to be seen as an iconic racing moment.

However, another Ford car which suffered complete calamity at that Le Mans – after briefly being driven doggedly by American racer Mark Donohue – sold for a staggering $13m (£10.1m), the highest auction price ever for a GT40 or Ford.

It smashes the $9.8m which the third-placed Le Mans ’66 GT40 of Ronnie Bucknum and Dick Hutcherson went for in 2018.

Ford GT40 MkII chassis P/1032 was auctioned at RM Sotheby’s 2025 Miami sale on behalf of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum, which is moving to make its collection IndyCar only.

Collage showing Ford GT40 number 4 rear detail, engine bay close‑up, and side view with lifted bodywork, black and white photo.

The green highlights were added for distinction, a good thing considering the car’s troubled outing; 7-litre V8 engine had less use than most

Powered by a 427-cubic-inch V8 NASCAR engine, the gold and green machine may not have been victorious, but it certainly came away from La Sarthe with a story to tell.

Having first been driven by Donohue and Walt Hansgen for Holman-Moody to second at the 1966 Sebring 12 Hours, it was then used as a test car as Ford prepared for its second assault on Le Mans. This followed the ’65 race where the manufacturer claimed fastest lap but saw all six of its GT40 MkIs retire.

“The rear clamshell blew completely off at 210mph on the Mulsanne Straight”

NASCAR drivers Richard ‘Dick’ Hutcherson and Marvin Panch, both on Ford’s original list for the Le Mans ’66 entry, were given P/1032 to get up to speed, but struggled to get the best out of it and complained of handling issues. Ford’s late cult hero test driver Ken Miles jumped in and declared the handling perfect, setting a new lap record at the marque’s Kingman circuit in Arizona.

P/1032 had been registered for Le Mans ’66 with Donohue and Hansgen at the wheel, but tragedy struck when the latter was killed at the La Sarthe test session the prior April (driving a different GT40).

Mario Andretti was first listed on the Le Mans provisional entry as Hansgen’s replacement with Donohue in P/1032, but his eventual team-mate was Paul Hawkins, who had won his class at the blue riband enduro the previous year driving an Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite.

“Donohue, famous for his engineering nous, persuaded team boss Moody to let him take it on track to work out the issue”

P/1032 was one of eight GT40s entered at Le Mans ’66 as Ford launched an all-out La Sarthe assault. Three cars were run by the Shelby American team, another trio by Holman-Moody, and two from Alan Mann. Along with Donohue and Hawkins in the No4 P/1032 car, the No5 of Ronnie Bucknum and Hutcherson, plus the No6 of Andretti and Lucien Bianchi were the other Holman-Moody entries.

The P/1032 was given its day-glo green highlights in the practice sessions before the race as it became apparent that telling it apart from some of the other GT40s, even in daylight hours, was going to be somewhat tricky.

Close‑up of Ford GT40 number 4 front wheel with gold rim and Goodyear tire, black and white photo.

Then chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford II, waved the starting flag on the 55-car field – but things went wrong early for Donohue and Hawkins. Starting from 11th, the Australian fried the clutch on lap one, which in-turn broke the half-shaft and meant he had to pit for repairs on lap two.

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Heading back out after lengthy work, the car soon began pulling to one side and developed a vibration. The initial decision was to retire P/1032 but Donohue, famous for his engineering nous as much as driving skill, persuaded team boss Moody to let him take it on track to work out the issue.

It transpired upon removing the valve covers that the car had bent rods, probably from over-revving the engine following its half-shaft issue. New rods were put in and Donohue rejoined the race.

It got worse though – no sooner had he then got back on track than the rear clamshell engine cover flew off at 210mph on the Mulsanne straight, the American just barely keeping the almost-out-of-control beast on the road.

Collage showing Ford GT40 cockpit interior, dashboard close‑up, and exterior number 4 on track, black and white photo.

Remarkably original, the car remained in the Indy Museum for over 50 years before going up for sale

On reaching the pits at a crawl, officials then tried to disqualify P/1032, but Donohue successfully remonstrated with them – helped by some booing from the crowd – to let him return to the track once more and retrieve the missing cover.

“The car was pardoned from competition life but treated with no less reverence”

Heading round the circuit in a ‘naked’ GT40 at a snail’s pace, Donohue parked his car on the Mulsanne while waving away fans who offered to help – this would have meant instant disqualification.

He dragged the tailpiece towards the car and reattached it with pliers and tape, before once again setting off at a crawl to get it fixed properly in the pits.

Pit lane with multiple numbered race cars and crowd under sponsor banners, black and white photo.

#4 on its way to the start in ’66

A few laps into yet another beleaguered re-entry, a transaxle issue was considered terminal and the car was finally retired. In five hours, the car had managed just 12 laps, while the Shelby American GT40 of McLaren and Amon took a famous first Ford win, part of its celebrated, if controversial, 1-2-3.

However, with the car soon pardoned from competition life thereafter, it was treated with no less reverence, this being a perfect example of the machine which had made history for the Blue Oval. Shown ‘as-raced’, P/1032 is thought to have been displayed at the October 1966 Paris Motor Show, before going on to the March 1967 Geneva Motor Show and finally the August 1967 Monza Auto Show. The car was donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in 1968 where it remained until the sale.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

An opportunity to return to Le Mans? That’s not something you ever turn down – especially when it is centred on racing a stunning 1965-spec Ford GT40 in which I had a personal and heavy involvement in building from scratch.

Between 2012 and ’22, I made nine starts at the Le Mans 24 Hours, racing primarily in the LMP2 class. Now here I was, pitching up for the 2025 Le Mans Classic in one of the greatest sports car models of them all, but one that might as well have been from a different world from the high-downforce modern prototypes I’m so familiar with.

Driver’s cockpit view racing GT40 in rain at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Broken windscreen wiper, headlights full of water… Welcome to the Le Mans Classic

Our GT40 is a toolroom car, newly built from constituent parts. Effectively, they are replicas but it’s slightly unfair to call them that. The concept is such that you should be able to take the door off an original and, with the minimum of fettling, fit it on the car you’ve built. This was a project created for a sequence of films documenting the build, to understand such models and how they worked and were driven in period, so it was a joy to get the chance to race it here.

We entered Le Mans Classic in Plateau Four for cars from 1962-65, a grid that is normally led by GT40s but also features AC Cobras, Jaguar E-types and other pre-66 GT staples. However, it was made clear to me a few weeks before the race that we’d be ’shifted’ to Grid Five for cars from 1966-71. On the fifth grid, you’re up against Ferrari 512s, Porsche 917s and Lola T70s – so although the scenery is a little better, the competition is stiffer. Our GT40 was giving up 150hp with an extra 200kg, on narrower tyres than a Ferrari 512, for example. The ultimate Le Mans weapon of the early 1960s looked a bit chubby by 1971, a testament to the pace of motor sport development.

GT40 passes under Dunlop bridge in mist at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Teams don’t have to race 24 hours solidly, which is just as well given that spare parts are at a minimum for some of the runners

Eric Le Galliot/MPS Agency, Ian Skelton, João Filipe/DPPI

All-weather Avon tyres, homologated for our age of car (think rock-hard inters), was also a disadvantage. In contrast, a 1970s prototype has a specific dry weather semi-slick and a wet tyre so soft you can permanently indent it with your thumbnail. This was going to be entertaining!

While the reasoning for this was never expressed to me in direct terms, it’s not hard to assume event organiser Peter Auto took a look at our car-driver combination and thought it would be ‘more fun’ to see how far we get up the faster grid and ‘less fun’ if we took a podium position away from one of their regulars who had been waiting two years to run the event. To be honest, I think it was a good call because we had a fantastic race event, and also it was a good test for me.

Ford GT40 exterior and cockpit details at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Le Mans Classic is structured as follows: two qualifying sessions set the grid for race one, followed by three 45-minute races over the event’s 24-hour span. There is a rotation of six grids, all defined by eras, and a variety of classifications to determine the results for each based on how much power and weight you’ve got. In other words, an Index of Performance. But from the standpoint of competitors who want to win, the most interesting one is the scratch classification, which is the distance on aggregate covered by all cars on your grid within the three races.

The contrast in approach to racing at the Le Mans Classic compared to the contemporary 24 Hours is, as you’ll probably imagine, stark. The first thing you’re aware of is that even though you’re not racing for 24 hours solid and the team gets a chance to look at the car between races, you’re also not turning up with four front ends, five rear ends, three gearboxes and all the other spares that go with it. We arrived with just one of everything. So if you break a gearbox, it’s over. If you buzz the engine, it’s over. If you bounce heavily over a kerb and damage the suspension, you might be able to find something in the truck – but realistically, you’re stopping. You have to drive with a heightened sense that the whole thing has to last. That being said, within those boundaries, you’re still pushing.

GT40 engine, paddock work, and cars on track at 2025 Le Mans Classic

A historic GT forced me to recalibrate everything I knew about the circuit. The first time I came through Porsche Curves, I ended up with an armful of oversteer heading for the outside wall, thinking, “Yeah, that’s about as fast as that goes through there.” As a driver, you retain a muscle memory for Le Mans, and I’m so used to charging into the first right-hander over the bump as you come off the road section and onto the full-time racetrack at a certain speed. I’ve always considered myself ‘quite good in there’ – pride comes before a fall! I was lucky to get away with it.

Driver focused inside GT40 cockpit at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Brundle has started nine Le Mans 24 Hours between 2012-22 but racing a 1965 car in the Classic required a whole new understanding

A lack of downforce means the apex speeds are lower and grip levels reduced, but the reaction time to fix a problem is resultantly much longer. I skidded through the middle of the corner using steering as brakes and just about kept it on the road. As with every circuit in a classic racer, corners also ’sprout’ that you previously had not considered. I found something similar at Silverstone when I first drove historic cars through Woodcote. At Le Mans, the kinks on the run to Indianapolis are barely noticeable in an LMP car – but boy, do you have to think hard about those in a GT40. The nose lifts aerodynamically at speed, meaning that you need all the road in these kinks, which are a generous lift at 160mph in traffic or any inclement condition.

But despite the change in rhythm, it was good to be back! What always blows your mind about classic cars is the terminal speed they achieve as they slip through the air drag-free, which aligns beautifully with what is special about Le Mans: just how fast the car is going for how long. We reached almost 180mph down towards the first chicane, which is similar to the terminal speed of an LMP2 car at the same point, but feels faster due to significantly less downforce and chassis complexity, helping the car swallow the crown and bumps in the centre of the Mulsanne.

Ford GT40 No.09 racing at 2025 Le Mans Classic

As Brundle quickly became aware, downforce was far less effective than what he was used to when racing an LMP car at the circuit

A GT40 is pretty much a bullet with a V8, so you just accelerate and accelerate. This effect, coupled with a long fifth gear and a historic braking system, means braking is a process, not an event. As you reach the braking point and squeeze the pedal to find the limit of deceleration, you can feel the balance of braking adjusting as the car moves over the uneven surface, and the braking zone offers you windows to shift down when the rear feels settled enough to do so.

You think, “I’d better start getting down the gearbox.” But you’ve got to count to three before you down-change, because the gear ratios you’re running are so long you can destroy the engine on the first downshift. Had I come into this car without any historic racing experience, I’d have blown the engine to bits on the fifth to fourth shift.

With undrilled discs, the brake temperature is also incredibly variable; you drive the circuit with a mental thermometer on the brakes, anticipating braking performance in each zone and spacing the gearchanges accordingly. Temperature builds through the middle sector in the big stops and dissipates through the first and final sectors. With no ducting allowed by the car’s historic technical passport, another 40m was required to compensate for that in the final big stop at Mulsanne corner, for example.

Alex Brundle in paddock with GT40s at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Red flags interrupted qualifying. Still, I benefitted massively from knowledge of the racetrack and was happy to qualify eighth. To finish the event in such a position would be a dream with the competition we had.

“The contrast to racing at the classic compared to the contemporary 24 Hours is stark”

My first race began at 5pm on Saturday. I got up to sixth place off the line, zooming around behind a couple of T70s, finding my feet and getting my bearings. But then I fell afoul of a historic racing quirk. The mandatory pitstop window allows teams sharing a car between drivers the opportunity to swap without disadvantage. It was open for 15 to 30minutes during these 45-minute races, with a penalty for pitting outside of these times. However, the pits remain open, regardless of the presence of safety cars and slow zones. Thus, pitting under the safety car saves minutes rather than seconds.

Ford GT40 No.09 racing on wet track at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Rain had been forecast for the 2025 running but when it arrived, it gave Brundle another problem to face

Kristof Vermeulen/MPS Agency, Ian Skelton

An early safety car was deployed in race one. Le Mans’ typical three safety cars were scrambled and I found myself at the head of the queue behind the second car because the quicker cars ahead of me had gapped me. We’d passed 9min of the race on the pitboard last time by, and a race lap in the GT40 is 4min 30sec to the line – but how much longer is a lap behind the safety car? Would I circulate to the pits within the window to take an advantageous, cheap stop? There’s no pit-to-car radio allowed, so you’re making your own decisions. It would have been a good idea to have a stopwatch on the dash… but we didn’t.

I started looking around, desperate to find one of the big screens that are typically located at the exit of the Porsche Curves to check the time. Lo and behold for the Le Mans Classic they don’t put as many up. Without knowing precisely what time it was and whether the pit window had opened, neither Frank Stippler in a Ferrari behind me nor I chose to come in, but those behind – probably with stopwatches on their dashes! – did so.

“The weather was howling, with water on the straights and rivers in my least favourite places”

Then, of course, the next time around the race went green and I had to do my stop under racing conditions. So having made a heroic start, I dropped down the order and managed to finish 22nd, losing 2min.

What can I say? I’d normally have a strategist and a radio!

Also suboptimal was a rear brake problem discovered before the second race, which was held just after midnight. Big stops at Le Mans from high speeds had caused our rear brakes to experience temperatures they had not previously suffered. During the gap, as they cooled, the pads glued themselves to the discs, so we had a bit of a panic to get out for the race. We were there with vices, grips and all sorts. We ground and squeaked the car into the assembly area. “Are these brakes going to work?” I thought as I donned my balaclava under the floodlights – just the sentiment you need to take onto the Mulsanne at night.

GT40 racing, pit work, and driver at 2025 Le Mans Classic

The forecast rain had begun to fall for race two, although not as heavily as it would later. I began from where I finished the first race, in 22nd, but had a mega start in the dark. There are plenty of pro drivers on the Le Mans Classic grids but there are also many who are just there for fun. It was a bit like Space Invaders weaving through these guys, and I was eighth by the end of the first lap, then moved up to sixth on the second. The high speeds did their job of cleaning up the rear brake disks for more abuse – a lucky escape!

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Live stream: Historic racing from Barcelona in Espiritu de Montjuïc

Barcelona hosts the first round of Peter Auto’s new Le Mans Classic Series: watch all of this weekend’s historic racing at Espiritu de Montjuïch, from 1950s sports cars to Group C’s big beasts, and GT3 racers from the 2000s

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Then a massive accident occurred (which didn’t involve me) on the Mulsanne, and the race was red-flagged and not resumed due to barrier repairs.

By that time, we’d managed to break the windscreen wiper and fill the lights up with water, so I wasn’t unbelievably upset… My Le Mans snakes and ladders game continued as the organisers then discounted the shortened race, and therefore my progress, from the event result.

By the time we got to race three at 8am, the weather was howling, with standing water on the straights and rivers in all my least favourite places. Due to the annulment of race two, I started again in 22nd position, and it had become clear in the dark of the second race that to get a result, I needed rain in a ‘Goldilocks zone’. Enough moisture to instil a cautious pace from those less versed in the Le Mans circuit than I, but not enough so that my only homologated period tyre option offered a delta in stability so enormous compared to the later car’s full wet option that I’d be beaten regardless of ability or effort! This rain looked way too much.

Alex Brundle focused in GT40 cockpit at 2025 Le Mans Classic

Alas for Alex, his stints in the GT40 have only made him wish he had been born many years ago…

Kristof Vermeulen/MPS Agency, Ian Skelton, Getty Images

This time, I went from 22nd to seventh on that opening lap. But all I was thinking was, let’s not smear this GT40 down the wall at Mulsanne as the car started disconcertingly floating on the standing water in the flat-out sections. I spent the first sector pinned to the outside white line. Years ago, I learnt a trick at Le Mans following Jan Magnussen behind a safety car, that in such conditions on the Mulsanne straight, it’s best to straddle the crown of the road where it’s driest. That day, I was trying to keep an LMP2 on the road behind the safety car. In this case, I was trying to achieve racing speed in a classic car, but the circuit responded similarly. Inside braking into Arnage is another trick; there is much less rubber build-up for safer braking. Using the run-off to clear the flooded road on the entry to Porsche 1 was a must. Mercifully, the rain eased in the middle of race three, and I was able to make some progress.

“What a life it must have been competing with the might of Ford behind you in these cars”

With Chevron B19s buzzing around me it was a tough race but I made it to seventh. The critical point was the time gained over many of my pursuers, which was enough to overcome my blunder in race one and vault me up the ’scratch standings’ in aggregate time. A fifth overall in a grid in which our GT40 had very little business was satisfying.

GT40 racing, paddock, and driver at 2025 Le Mans Classic

More satisfying, though, is the brutal, beautiful experience of taking a time machine back to what, for me, will always be the greatest years of racing. What a life it must have been competing with the might of Ford behind you in these cars, where driver skill was the deciding factor on most days. Never have I been so sure that I was born in the wrong era of motor sport.

It’s been three years since my last Le Mans 24 Hours, so it was good to go back, especially in a car in which I’ve invested so much of myself. Now the classic meeting is happening every year, and Le Mans itself is tightening towards a whole field of works Hypercars, it feels like this is the Le Mans race weekend amateurs might focus on – kind of what GTE Am used to offer in the 24 Hours. Although the fact that more recent classes from the past 20 years are now eligible is something I find annoying. I don’t like to be considered historic! Especially as I’m still writing to people trying to get myself back into the Le Mans 24 Hours itself. On the flip side, it means that if anybody has bought one of the nine cars that I’ve raced in the main event, and needs a Le Mans Classic co-driver, I’m sure I could pencil you in…

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

Back in 1967, American drivers, cars and teams arguably reached their zenith. In fact, it’s staggering to look back and consider how many major moments in the sport took place in 1967 from the American perspective.

Early in the 1967 racing season Mario Andretti made a remarkable statement by winning NASCAR’s Daytona 500 aboard a Holman & Moody Ford. Mario was an open-wheel racer from up north, a foreign-born Yankee no less, renowned in midgets, sprint cars and Indycars, winning his first USAC Championship in 1966. In the pits, NASCAR and Ford tried their best to gift the race to the favoured Fred Lorenzen but Mario drove the wheels off his car using all the track in sprint-car style to score a superb win.

Vintage Formula One car number 36 cornering with driver in helmet and goggles, black and white photo.

Gurney in his Eagle-Weslake at the Belgian Grand Prix. He’d become the first all-American winner since 1921

A little over a month later Andretti joined Bruce McLaren to win the Sebring 12 Hours driving a Ford MkIV with A.J. Foyt and Lloyd Ruby finishing in second driving a MkII. Andretti would go on to win Sebring two more times with Ferrari in 1970 and ’72.

“American drivers, cars and teams reached their zenith in 1967”

At Indianapolis in May, Andretti qualified on pole with his Dean Van Lines Brawner/Hawk-Ford but like everyone else he was blown away in the 500 by Parnelli Jones and Andy Granatelli’s STP turbine car. Parnelli drove around the outside of Andretti in the first turn and ran away on his own, leading 171 of 200 laps (save pitstops). But with barely four laps to go the turbine broke a drive bearing.

Winning driver in Firestone suit waving with Miss Firebird and checkered flag, Daytona 500 celebration, black and white photo.

Mario Andretti claimed his first and only NASCAR Cup Series win at the Daytona 500

Parnelli blamed himself for pushing too hard on his way out of the pits handing the 500 to A.J. Foyt, the only man still running on the same lap as Jones and came home to score his third Indy win in six years. That was Foyt’s first Indy 500 win with one of his own Texas-built Coyotes, which he developed and raced over the following 10 years. His fourth win, in 1977, was scored in a very different Bob Riley-designed Coyote.

Next came Le Mans, where Foyt teamed with Dan Gurney in a Ford MkIV to help the Blue Oval win the 24 Hours again ahead of Mike Parkes and Ludovico Scarfiotti’s Ferrari 330 P4. It was an epic win and on the spur of the moment Gurney famously initiated the tradition of spraying champagne, at the time showering bubbly on Henry Ford II and his wife.

Indianapolis 500 crowd with cars on track and driver adjusting goggles, black and white photo.

The Indianapolis 500 brought huge crowds, and an A.J Foyt victory (left)

The Belgian GP at Spa took place on the following weekend and Gurney wrote his name even more powerfully into the history books by winning in one of his beautiful All American Racers Eagle-Weslake V12s. It was the first time an American had won a grand prix driving an American car since Jimmy Murphy won the 1921 French GP for Duesenberg. Dan also led the German GP at the Nürburgring in 1967 before Goodyear pulled the plug on Eagle F1 in 1969.

“Gurney famously began the tradition of spraying champagne on the podium”

In August of 1967 the first Canadian GP for Formula 1 cars took place. The race had started in 1961 as a Can-Am-type sportscar race but F1 arrived for the first time in ’67 with Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme finishing one-two in their Brabham-Repcos. Gurney took third in one of his Eagles. I’m pleased to say I was there watching from the top of turn two among a throng of fans to witness it all.

Collage with Ford GT40 number 1 racing and three stock cars numbered 97, 40, 11 on oval track, black and white photo.

From left: Ford on its way to back-to-back Sebring successes; Andretti at Daytona (number 11)

Of course, the Can-Am had come to life the previous year with John Surtees winning the inaugural championship with his own Lola T70. Can-Am drew spectacular cars and huge crowds, hitting its stride in 1967 as Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren won five of six races with their Gulf McLaren M6As. McLaren won the championship from Hulme initiating the ‘Bruce & Denny Show’. Team McLaren went on to dominate the legendary series, winning four more titles through 1971 with McLaren, Hulme and Peter Revson.

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Also in 1967 Mark Donohue won the United States Road Racing Championship driving a Sunoco Lola T70 for a fledgling Penske Racing team. Donohue’s USRRC title put the team on the map and was the first of many championships Penske would win in a remarkable history that continues to unfold today.

The 1967 USAC Championship included 21 races run on paved ovals, dirt ovals and road courses. The championship came down to a three-way battle between Andretti, Foyt and Bobby Unser, with Foyt beating Andretti by the slimmest of margins after Andretti drove no fewer than three cars in the season finale at Riverside in a desperate attempt to seize the title. Mario won seven races. Foyt won five, but A.J.’s bonus points for winning the Indy 500 put him over the top.

Celebration with champagne pouring beside driver and race car number 9, black and white photo.

From left: Gurney makes a moment of history that continues now as tradition; Mark Donohue in a Lola T70 for a young Penske team

The year also featured a remarkable feat in NASCAR as Richard Petty won 27 races on the way to the second of his seven championships. Nobody has come close to winning as many races in a major category as Petty in 1967. Through the late Sixties and early Seventies ‘The King’ defined NASCAR.

Despite the achievements of Petty, Foyt and Gurney in 1967 the motoring writers of America decided at the end of the year that Andretti deserved to win the USA’s ‘Driver of the Year’ award. It was a difficult vote in a year and era filled with giants of American racing.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

The storyline of Le Mans ’66 – the 20th Century Fox film about Carroll Shelby leading the Ford factory team to a podium-packing victory in the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours – had been kicking around Hollywood for some time. Fox had bought the rights to the A J Baime book Go Like Hell. But the movie now released is instead a new take on the true story, developed by director James Mangold, and scripted by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller.

Mangold finally began shooting and the process went on for 67 days, with units working in California, New Orleans, Atlanta, Savannah and Statesboro, Georgia, as well as at Le Mans itself.

When I first got the call inviting me to become involved, there were just a couple of months to go before filming began. My introduction came through stunt co-ordinator, Robert Nagle, a former racer turned movie industry stunt man. As a fan of the period and of motor racing in general he’d had this story on his radar for many years. Now I was engaged simply as one of his stunt driver team.

Even though my father wasn’t in the 1966 Ford team, he’d been with them for the preceding two years when the team was run by John Wyer. For 1966 he’d joined Chaparral and it was probably too esoteric, and inessential to the plot, for the movie to feature my old man as a driver, although he gets one or two mentions in the story line.

In contrast, Alex Gurney (Dan’s son) and Jeff Bucknum (Ronnie’s son) both have their fathers featured. Alex had a couple of lines in the movie, playing Dan, so he was considered ‘an actor’. Jeff, whose father co-drove the third-place car, was ever vigilant to see his father was fairly depicted.

Collage with driver in helmet in blue car lineup and driver in white suit beside car number 17, black and white photo.

From left: Author Derek Hill on board a Corvette ready to recreate a race at Willow Springs Raceway, with filming vehicle behind; Dressed as Graham Hill ahead of a Le Mans-style start

My first engagement with the production came at Willow Springs Raceway, in the high desert about 90 minutes north of Los Angeles. I arrived to find an absolute army of studio trucks, trailers, 1960s cars – some genuine, some lookalike – and hundreds of extras all dressed in period-correct clothing.

I found they actually had more cars than drivers, but the first thing that struck me was the art department’s incredible attention to the finest visual detail.

What they were shooting at Willow Springs was an early part of the story – a kind of nondescript early-60s SCCA race from the time when Ken Miles and Shelby’s other team drivers were just beginning to make the new Cobra’s mark. The storyline was that a Chevrolet Corvette was leading the race – as they did in the day – only for Ken Miles’ Cobra to streak by on the last lap, and win. I was driving a Corvette, Alex in another as Dan, but Ken Miles in the Cobra streaked by on the last lap – as scripted. It was an interesting day, high action that I thought was tastefully done. I was pretty impressed, not least with the care put into briefing us before the shoot.

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They had a great custom-made chase car, festooned with cameras. Called the ‘Frankenstein’, it was essentially a stock-car racer-looking rig, built low to the ground, with a frame built around it to get heavy cameras quickly around corners and with enough acceleration to move the heavy equipment. We were briefed to exaggerate facial expressions, and our hand movements. We didn’t always get it right, so they’d shoot again. We ended up spending maybe 10 days at Willow Springs. It was mid-August, every day over 100 degrees. They kept us supplied with ice packs for our cooled driving suits. Almost every need was met. Nothing seemed too much trouble.

That first day of filming was an eye-opening experience – weird but exciting. I was part of a new team getting together for the first time. The most eye-catching of all are the customised vehicles that are covered with cameras and allow a car or a shell of a car to be driven around while an actor is inside, well… acting. The driver/operator sits way out back and up high. Along with about a dozen other stunt drivers, Robert, our co-ordinator, had us gathered around a table with a bunch of Matchbox cars to strategise our next sequence, carefully choreographing our individual manoeuvres to make the racing look as realistic and as action-packed as possible. I knew a lot of the other stunt guys and each brought a wealth of driving talent, so just about any idea thrown out there, the team would be on board.

Group of drivers in Dunlop racing suits with one person in yellow shirt, racetrack setting, black and white photo.

Stunt team with co-ordinator Nagle at centre, Derek Hill on the far right

I guess I did OK because they then asked me to go to Georgia, where they were shooting ‘Mulsanne Straight’ footage on location. They’d found a long straight through the pine trees outside Statesborough in Georgia. I’d guess it was made more attractive by some local tax support.

Having missed the first few days while finishing up my MC duties for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, I arrived in Georgia the following Monday – straight into an all-night shoot. Taking the better part of the dark hours, we shot a sequence showing a Ford GT going wide – at ‘Arnage’ – while avoiding a Ferrari P3 that had spun out. The GT40, driven by Jeremy Fry (lead stunt driver on Baby Driver) kicked the tail out coming around Arnage and crashed into hay bales, climbing up them and tearing off again in anger. I was put on flagman duty to act as the marshal alerting the oncoming race cars.

“I gunned the throttle and spun, but flashed between the ‘Ferrari’ and the camera car”

As always, each such scene was carefully choreographed, analysed for all the ways to make it right and to double-double-check what could go wrong. After a few rehearsals, the tension builds up, then action is called. The manoeuvre was pulled off expertly and much to the delight of the film-making team. After a few more days getting all the Mulsanne sequences we were off to the next location, an hour down the road.

At Hutchinson Island Raceway outside Savannah, where I’d won a race back around ’97, the unit took it over and dressed it with period 1966 Le Mans advertising to look the part. We spent about three weeks there shooting all kinds of stuff, night, day, dusk, dawn, rain, dry… and shifting straw bales around to relieve the waiting. There was even a reproduction of the little house and garden that back then was on the inside of White House corner.

ford_gt40_lineup_grandstand_scene

Detailed full-scale Le Mans pits built in California, with lookalike ‘hero’ cars

Then to Road Atlanta – using mainly the back straight and a couple of corners. I spent most of the time in a GT40 lookalike. They had a big articulated truck with a pneumatic cannon, on which they loaded a Ferrari 275GTB shell mounted on a rolling simplified tube-frame chassis. They lined it all up, there was a big safety briefing – one of dozens! – and they fired it. I think they got through two 275GTB shells; after wadding-up a test car, the two ‘Ferraris’ went live.

As our stunt coordinator lined up the cars for a crash sequence, it turned out I would be the first GT40 to deal with the chaos unfolding ahead. The fibreglass shell ‘GTB’ would launch at a range of about 60 yards and would land just ahead of me on the track where I’d be arriving at a fair clip with a couple of Ferrari P3s on my tail. My instruction was to “do what you do in a race to avoid an accident…”. OK, right.

On our first take, with a giant BOOM from the cannon, the Ferrari shell launched and did a full forward rotation to land on its roof, hitting two strategically placed crash cameras which took off like two giant cubes bouncing along the track in front. The lunar-lander look-alike ‘Frankenstein’ camera car came rushing up on the action as we dodged and weaved through the debris field. The launch car from the cannon hit the grass and ricocheted across my bow just as the camera car flashed by for the wide shot. I aimed for the inside verge, at the last instant gunned the throttle and spun, but flashed through between the ‘Ferrari’ and the camera car, which got well and truly T-boned. The second unit director, Darrin Prescott, came up to us after, thrilled to bits, as the scene unfolded with unexpected extra drama. They wanted us just to go for it… but always in a very well briefed, well considered and controlled environment. The truth was that with real cars, real speed, it felt like the real deal… which brought a real thrill to it all.

Back in California, meanwhile, they’d built a fantastic – and I do mean FANTASTIC – reproduction of the 1966 Le Mans pits on a section of the private Agua Dulce Airport, near Palmdale, again 90-odd minutes from LA. I was blown away by the art department’s detailing there – authentic window frames, doors, light fittings – even the media centre. It seemed incredible to me they could take such care – then just tear it all down.

Much of the movie narrative was shot by the first unit there, while we just drove by as background – eight or a dozen of us, in Fords, Ferraris, Porsche 906s, 911s… pits to the right, big blue screens to the left – hiding the rest of the airport. They would later ‘block in’ the grandstands and crowds by CGI there – modern movie magic. But that pit row was something else… amazing. They meanwhile shot the supposed Shelby factory in a hangar at another nearby airport.

camera_car_rig_production_setup

Clockwise from left: ‘Frankenstein’ mobile camera vehicle; Moving rig to film actors ‘driving’; Cameras on chase car

Before every shot there was a safety meeting. Everyone involved in a scene would be told what was required and what to expect, all led by Prescott and Nagle. The standing order was “Speak up if anything doesn’t sound right”. They had rain cranes showering the course during many of the night scenes being shot in the pit lane, which gave us all a bit of a thrill of aquaplaning down a runway.

I really enjoyed driving the lookalike GT40s, not least because I could fit into them, while in the lookalike Ferrari P3s and Porsches I was too scrunched up. We didn’t have much contact with the movie’s stars – Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles – but Bale proved a decent driver and drove some scenes himself.

What I will remember most – apart from the Road Atlanta moment – was shooting the Le Mans start, over and over. They dressed me as Graham Hill, with London Rowing Club helmet colours… and I insisted on the moustache. Every detail had to be right – we’d sprint across as the flag fell, the mechanics cheering us on. And I stood there, and they called ‘Action’ – and for a moment – in front of that huge, fantastic, pit row you could hear a pin drop.

This is what my Dad had always preferred to avoid – the pressure of the Le Mans start. But he’d been there in 1966 driving for Chaparral – and for me, Le Mans ’66 suddenly felt real…

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

Although it would prove one of the big hits of 2019, the commercially successful Ford v Ferrari (Le Mans ’66 in the UK) didn’t exactly race to the starting line. The celluloid version of how Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles created a legendary race car had been stalled for almost a decade.

Since 2009, a number of stars and directors – including Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Michael Mann – had come and gone from the project. Back then it was called Go Like Hell (from the book by AJ Baime on which it was based: Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans).

But it wasn’t until James Mangold got involved in 2018 that things finally began to move forward. The writer/director had just had a critical and commercial hit with Logan, his reimagining of Wolverine as a western. He then helped out significantly on post-production for The Greatest Showman. By year’s end the two films were on their way to earning over a billion dollars for 20th Century Fox, giving Mangold – and Ford v Ferrari, as it was now called in the US — some momentum.

With Mangold on board, Christian Bale agreed to play Miles and Matt Damon took on Shelby. Theatre heavyweight Tracy Letts was hired as Henry Ford II and, with a nine-figure budget in place, the rest of the cast and crew was rounded out with well-regarded talent. The intention was to make a big, old fashioned studio movie.

“It’s the kind of movie that reminds me why I got into the business in the first place,” said über-producer Peter Chernin (Planet of the Apes franchise, Greatest Showman, Red Sparrow, etc). “It’s a big, emotional, distinctive theatrical experience that embraces all of the reasons we want to sit in a movie theatre. We want to be invested. We want to be moved, to cry, to laugh… to be inspired. This movie is all of that and more.”

The real-life events that fuelled the film were indeed inspiring but also bittersweet — a potent mix of stirring and tragic facts that were well known to many race fans. In 1959 Carroll Shelby had won arguably the most challenging race in motorsport, the Le Mans 24 Hours, co-driving (with Englishman Roy Salvadori) an Aston Martin DBR1. But his triumph was soon followed by bad news: the Texan was told that a serious heart condition meant he could never race again.

Ford GT40 with four people beside car in desert racetrack setting, mountains behind, black and white photo.

Ford v Ferrari

• Released: 2019

• Director: James Mangold

• Studio: Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Turnpike films

• Stars: Matt Damon, Christian Bale

• Gross: $225.5m

The resourceful Shelby reinvented himself as a car designer and salesman working out of a warehouse in Venice Beach with a team including driver and engineer Ken Miles, a sardonic Brit that the Americans affectionately nicknamed “Teddy Teabag”. Miles became the chief test driver of Shelby-American, and notched up a string of impressive race performances that garnered the attention of the Ford Motor Company which, by the early sixties, had lost its US market leader status to General Motors.

Ford marketing executive Lee Iacocca (who would later revive Chrysler in the ’80s) had proposed a solution: focus on speed. His logic was that if the company had some successful race cars, consumers — particularly a generation of newly affluent young people looking to buy their first cars — would be more inclined to see Ford vehicles as ’sexy’ by association. Since no-one produced sexier or faster cars than Enzo Ferrari, Ford initially tried to buy its way to racing success by acquiring the company. ‘Il Commendatore’ strung Ford along for a while (whilst actually in negotiations with Fiat) before rejecting Ford in blunt terms when it became clear that he wouldn’t get to retain total autonomy over the racing division after the proposed pairing.

Outraged at the snub, Henry Ford II ordered Ford’s racing division to build a car to defeat Ferrari at Le Mans. Iacocca promptly hired Shelby, who in-turn enlisted Miles.

That is where we find the centre of Mangold’s film: the engrossing story of how two free-thinking individuals like Shelby and Miles battle corporate thinking, their own personal demons and the laws of physics to develop a revolutionary new race car. But the film also doesn’t skirt away from the high price they pay for their victories.

“I thought that there could be something profoundly analogue and real and gritty about the film and the sexiness of these beasts, the cars, their engines, the danger”
James Mangold, director

“The challenge,” said Mangold, “was to navigate this story so that audiences feel the love and camaraderie and energy of these drivers and designers and mechanics and pit crew, but without depending upon a cliché kind of victory. I felt that if we could get deep enough into the characters, the winning and the losing of the races would be secondary to the winning and the losing of their lives.”

The key to Mangold’s film, and what arguably gives Ford v Ferrari its power, is the director’s decision to eschew CGI spectacle in favour of a more grounded approach. He said: “In an age of incredibly computer-enhanced action movies, I thought that there could be something analogue and real and gritty about the sexiness of these beasts, the cars, their engines, the danger. These characters are riding in a thin aluminium shell at 200mph. The miracle that was their daring and survival under these circumstances was something that I really wanted to try to convey.”

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To that end, Mangold asked his stars to do as much of the driving as they could with real vehicles on real tracks. “It was important because I wanted the audience to feel the vibration of the engine, the bolts rattling in the chassis. To understand how hard the vehicle is being pushed, and how close it is to exploding.”

Cars for the film were built, borrowed or rented. Among them a one-of-a-kind polished aluminium Daytona Coupé, and several historical vehicles that the Automobile Club de l’Ouest loaned from its museum, including a Ford GT40 MKI and an ultra-rare CD SP66 Peugeot. (Only three CD SP66s still exist). Many of the film’s race cars were made by Superformance, while JPS Motorsports in North Hollywood built several Porsche Speedster replicas. In all, 34 custom race cars were built for the film.

Before shooting began, Christian Bale, who drives both a Shelby Cobra and a variety of Ford GT40s on screen, trained with veteran stunt coordinator and driver Robert Nagle. Nagle was impressed: “Christian was very much into it and had a strong aptitude for it. I’d say he’s the best actor I’ve ever trained for driving.”

Driver in car number 98 racing through desert track with cars ahead and mountains behind, black and white photo.

A total of 34 custom cars were built for Ford v Ferrari to create the racing scenes. This ‘Willow Springs’ race is actually at a Honda test track. Bale (Ken Miles) even trained with pro stunt drivers

Naturally, the biggest production challenge was recreating the various racing sequences, up to and including the climactic restaging of the 1966 Le Mans race. But although Le Mans is still an annual event, the current track no longer resembles its 1966 incarnation.

“It looks more like Charles de Gaulle Airport than what it once was, which was a homespun, simple thing,” said Mangold. “It was a set of country roads connected in a loop with a few quaint grandstands. The magic of that, driving at 200mph in the most cutting-edge race car prototypes on a series of French country roads through day, night, rain, sleet, dawn, dusk—doing that for 24 hours in one vehicle seemed like the most powerful thing we could try to convey.”

Like the other races in the film, Le Mans was recreated in the US. (Daytona scenes were filmed at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Willow Springs at a Honda test track in Mojave Valley and Dearborn at the Porsche Experience in Carson). The Le Mans sequence featured the largest set constructed for the film: a full-scale historical recreation of the start-finish grandstands, along with three large segments of grandstands, VIP boxes, the Ford and Ferrari pits, and the press box, all of which was built at Agua Dulce Airpark, a private airport in Santa Clarita.

“I wanted that idea of racing for 24 hours to dawn on you, to feel what it would be like”
James Mangold, director

In addition, three locations in rural towns in Georgia were used to portray the country road course as it would have looked back in 1966, including a stretch of Route 46 in Statesboro, the Grand Prize of America Race Track in Hutchinson Island and Road Atlanta in Braselton.

Over five miles of roads were dressed to recreate sections of the Circuit de la Sarthe, such as the Mulsanne Straight, Tertre Rouge, the Esses, Arnage and the Dunlop Bridge, with hundreds of period-correct banners.

This vast endeavour was essential because, as Mangold observed: “The last 40 minutes of the film is predominantly this race and I really wanted you to feel like you were hunkered down and living in it — I wanted that idea of racing for 24 hours to dawn on you, to feel what that really would be like trying to drive faster than any man for longer than you can stay awake.”

Having spent so much effort recreating the track, the filmmakers also had to devise exactly how they were going to actually film the sequences, with Mangold intent on infusing character into the driving moments. He didn’t want the spectacle to overtake the human drama so opted for a traditional approach. No exaggerated or unnatural camera movements were allowed. The Fast and the Furious, this wasn’t. Instead camera techniques of the period were employed, with both the 1966 sports drama Grand Prix and Steve McQueen’s 1971 film Le Mans serving as references to ensure the focus always remained on the characters.

The thoughtful approach paid off. Audiences flocked to see this analogue film in a digital world. It made over $225 million globally — not bad for a film with no superheroes or Jedis. Critics were equally enamoured. The National Board of Review named it one of the 10 best films of the year and there were BAFTA, Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture. Ultimately, by embracing the past, Ford v Ferrari isn’t a film that breaks the mould, but it is one that can sit amongst the great racing movies.

Why Ford Distanced Itself from The Film

Ford’s Lack of Interaction with The Le Mans ’66 Movie Was Notable by Its Absence, Says Jake Williams-Smith

It Was Hard to Miss the Publicity Blitz Around the Le Mans ’66 film, but There Was One Place Where You Were Guaranteed to Find No Mention Whatsoever of The Movie: Ford’s Own Social Media Channels.

Despite It Throwing the Spotlight on Ford’s Historic Achievement, on November 15, the Day that The Film Was Released, Ford Uk Posted Nothing on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. One Clue as To This Detachment Was a Statement, Sent to Motor Sport saying: “we Hope Audiences Realise that Movies Often Employ a Bit of Dramatic License.”

The Company May Have Been Referring to The Casting of Leo Beebe, Ford’s Racing Director, as The Villain in The Tale of Henry Ford Ii’s Endorsed War Against the Italian Marque at Le Mans. Henry Ford Ii, Then Company President, Is Presented as A Bumbling Executive with No Understanding of Racing.

Though Ford Initially Provided Archive Material to Producers, It Was Not Involved Beyond This Stage. the Company Made Clear that The Film Had Received “no Official Backing from Ford”.

Ford’s statement added: “The Ford GT team’s triumph at Le Mans in ’66 was a proud moment in our history and we appreciate the interest in Ford’s racing heritage. It’s great that the movie is an entertaining throwback, sparking renewed interest in the history of Ford’s success at Le Mans, but of course we hope audiences realise that movies—even movies that are based on real events—often employ a bit of dramatic license.”

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

Le Mans, June 18th – 19th 1966

This year Ford came to Le Mans in a much more organised manner than in the previous two years and the whole Detroit-supported project looked much more likely to achieve success. There were eight 7-litre MkII Ford racing coupés, three run by Shelby American, three by Holman & Moody and two by Alan Mann Racing and all the cars were prepared to the same specification, differing only in colour, which was done for identification purposes, but unlike in previous years this was a concerted and united effort controlled much more strictly by Ford staff.

In direct opposition were two works 330 P3 Ferrari coupés and an open 330 P3, the last on loan to Chinetti’s NART team. Backing up the works Fords were numerous private teams running 4.7-litre GT40 models, and on the side of the works Ferraris were private teams with 365 P2, 275 LM, Dino 206 and GTB models, but the atmosphere at Le Mans was much stronger than Ford versus Ferrari, it was America versus Europe, and the United States had added strength in their armoury from a lone Chaparral, while Europe had Porsche to rely on for solid support.

Henry Ford II waves cars away at 1966 Le Mans start

Henry Ford II waved the cars away as part of an armada of Ford employees

During practice America showed its strength when Gurney made fastest lap at a staggering 3m 30.6s, an average speed of 230.102kph (approx 142.8mph) and he was not alone, for the other Fords were right behind him and the Ferraris could only manage to get in the midst, being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Before practice finished both sides had been struck a severe body blow, for Surtees had an altercation with his team manager and went off in a huff, just when Ferrari and Europe needed him most, and one of the Ford drivers, the American Dick Thompson, caused an accident and did not comply with the rules about reporting it and was disqualified. As he was co-driver to Graham Hill in one of the Alan Mann cars this was a serious blow indeed, but some rushing around got Brian Muir, the Australian saloon-car driver, over as a replacement. Ford had already had to solve a lot of driver problems for accidents had prevented Foyt, Ruby and Stewart from joining the team as arranged.

Enzo Ferrari follows 1966 Le Mans remotely from Italy

Enzo Ferrari didn’t even turn up, he followed instead from Italy via telephone

The days prior to the race had been extremely hot, but Saturday was rather ominous, with gathering clouds and a much lower temperature and 30 minutes before the traditional 4pm start a drizzling rain began, causing a lot of tyre changing, both as regards tread pattern and make, however, the rain did not develop quite as anticipated so that some people were caught out. Henry Ford II was invited to drop the starting flag and send the 55 drivers running across the track to start the Grand Prix d’Endurance, or 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Cars line up for 1966 Le Mans start with packed grandstands

The tension builds as the field lines up for the start of the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours, with Ford’s Dan Gurney on pole

The line-up was in order of practice times and from Gurney at the head with the red 7-litre Ford there was a long line of very powerful and very fast cars, probably more than Le Mans has seen before, which made one rather apprehensive of some of the tiny cars and inexperienced drivers at the lower end of the row. In the solid phalanx of Ford machinery the Ferraris were fifth, seventh, eighth, 15th, 16th and 17th, with the Chaparral 10th, which was not a very hopeful situation for Europe.

Ford GT40s lead Ferraris through Esses at 1966 Le Mans

A flurry of Fords heads through the Esses. The GT40s were enetered by both works and private teams. Leading here is the Ford France car of Guy Ligier/Bob Grossman

Graham Hill led the opening stage, followed by Gurney, these two running away from the rest of the field, but European hopes rose as three Fords headed for the pits at the end of the opening lap. Ken Miles stopped very briefly to have his door shut, Whitmore came in to stay for repairs with a broken brake pipe and Hawkins limped in with a broken drive-shaft, which had given him some exciting moments at the end of the Mulsanne straight. Rodríguez in the NART Ferrari P3 had made a terrible start but recovered quickly and by 4.30pm he was in fourth place, ahead of Parkes, but Gurney, who now led Hill, and Bucknum were all out of sight. Miles was travelling very fast and making up time for his stop, and although Ford tactics had called for 3m 36s laps some of the 7-litre cars were nearer 3m 33s a lap and there was a bit of a free-for-all going on.

Porsche 906 serviced in pits during 1966 Le Mans

Jo Siffert and Colin Davis took class glory for Porsche’s new 906

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In the 2-litre category, which was all-European, but nevertheless very interesting, Porsche was leading from Matra–BRM, while two of the Dinos had fallen by the wayside and by 5pm the remaining Dino was in trouble and on its way out, so that Ferrari’s small arms had proved quite useless as supporting forces. By this time Gurney was way ahead, with Graham Hill holding second place, Bucknum third. Rodríguez fourth and Miles up in fifth place after lowering the lap record successively to 3m 33.1s. Bonnier in the Chaparral was next, then Parkes, Guichet, McLaren and Bianchi, so the situation was Ford, Ford, Ford, Ferrari, Ford, Chaparral, Ferrari, Ferrari, Ford and Ford, with more following. During the second hour rain began to fall as refuelling stops became due and this caused a minor panic as well as numerous heart-searching decisions about further tyre changing. The yellow Ford of Whitmore/Gardner and the bronze one of Hawkins/Donohue had both been repaired and gone out again, but neither were very fit and were back in the pits when the leaders came in for fuel, which caused something of a shambles due to lack of space and Graham Hill just could not find room and had to go on for another lap.

ASA GT race car serviced in pits at 1966 Le Mans

An ASA GT RB-613 gets a service

After this commotion the order was cars number 3, 1, 27, 5, 7, 20, 21, 2, 6, 18, with Ginther doing his best in the P3 Ferrari, but Ford overwhelming by numbers, Denny Hulme took over from Miles and continued the good work taking the lead from Gurney’s partner Jerry Grant, while Muir was doing a remarkable job bearing in mind he had not sat in a Ford GT or seen Le Mans until the morning of the race. Even before darkness fell the pace was beginning to take its toll and many of the weak as well as the strong had fallen out, Ford number 4 having a broken differential and number 8 being delayed further by a defective clutch-operating mechanism, which put it behind the minimum regulation distance, so it was withdrawn.

Austin-Healey Sprite and others race at 1966 Le Mans

Of all shapes and sizes: the eclectic field included a works Austin-Healey entry. John Rhodes and Clive Baker shared this Sprite Le Mans (#48)

“To avoid any mistakes ford got tough and cleared out all the ‘hangers on’ from its pits”

Two of the small cars, a 6-cylinder ASA and a Peugeot 204-engined CD, caused a worrying diversion by getting tangled up on the Mulsanne Straight and catching fire, luckily without serious hurt, and before midnight it looked as though the American might was beginning to stumble. Graham Hill walked back to the pits having left number 7 by the roadside with broken suspension, and number 6, the Bianchi/Andretti car, had broken its engine; the Chaparral had gone out ignominiously with a flat battery, but number 20 Ferrari had gone out with a flourish when Scarfiotti collected a CD in the Esses and Schlesser had been involved through there suddenly being nowhere for him to aim his Matra without having an accident, which was very hard on the French firm.

Porsche prototypes battle Ferraris at 1966 Le Mans

The new Porsches ran like clockwork. This is Udo Schütz and Peter de Klerk’s 906, which finished sixth

At midnight Gurney/Grant (Ford), Miles/Hulme (Ford) and Rodríguez/Ginther (Ferrari) had all completed 126 laps, while McLaren/Amon (Ford) were one lap behind, Mairesse/Müller (Ferrari) were four laps behind and Bandini/Guichet (Ferrari) were five laps behind. Ford’s supporting forces were moving up, but immediately behind them were four Porsches presenting a very solid front, running splendidly and with no troubles at all. One hour later the Mairesse/Müller Ferrari had dropped back a place and there were only 32 cars left running and the cold and damp night was beginning to reach its lowest ebb. It is at this time of the race that the unexpected can happen, and trouble struck both camps, with the Rodríguez/Ginther Ferrari losing its gearbox and one of the private Fords of the Essex Racing Team going out with a broken engine.

ferrari_330p3_le_mans1966

Richie Ginther in his 330 P3 Spyder

At 3.30am Müller brought the Swiss Ferrari into the pit with its gearbox broken and the remaining works Ferrari was delayed by a broken brake pipe. As dawn broke the list of runners had diminished to 27 and Fords filled the first six places, followed by the works Porsches, while such Ferraris as were running were either sick or tired. The three GTB Ferraris were still running perfectly, but of course could not hope to match any of the prototypes for speed. As the world of the 24 Hours began to wake up and the sleepy ones came to life again Ford lost a steady runner when the Ligier/Grossman GT40 went out with engine trouble and Ferrari looked like losing the NART GTB Ferrari as its clutch and gearbox were breaking up.

Ford GT40 No.2 speeds past crowds at 1966 Le Mans

Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon’s Ford in full flow. The 7-litre MkIIs enjoyed tremendous speed but they carried reliability concerns until the finish

Just after breakfast (8am), there was strife in all directions, for the sole remaining P3 Ferrari had been suffering from an internal water leak in the engine and a slipping clutch, and it finally succumbed, while Spoerry crashed the Filipinetti Ford GT40 he had been sharing with Peter Sutcliffe and the Belgian 275 LM Ferrari staggered to a final halt at the pits having been losing water and overheating for a long while, but even more serious was the fact that the Gurney/Grant Ford was beginning to show signs of failing. There were now only 24 cars in the race, and it was barely mid-morning when gloom descended on the Shelby pits as car number 3 came slowly in to retire, having lost its water, overheated, and was unable to replenish anyway due to the rule demanding a certain distance between taking on fluids other than petrol.

Ford GT40 pit scene and Ferrari crash at 1966 Le Mans

From left: Gurney/Grant’s Ford makes a stop in a crowded Ford pit box; What remained of Scarfiotti and Parkes’ Ferrari after its accident

The NART GTB Ferrari was disqualified for transgressing the rules when starting away from the pits without a clutch, and although Fords were in the first three places with the only three MkII cars running the team was not terribly confident, seeing victory approaching but knowing how things can still fall apart in the last few hours of Le Mans. In order to cut out any possibility of a nonsense that might force team personnel make a mistake the Ford pits got tough and cleared out all the “hangers on” and the myriad of photographers and TV and radio people, who invariably get in the way, and quite rightly so, for it had a lot at stake and had worked fantastically hard to reach this point, a point that was by no means a certain victory. The fact that the race was not yet won was brought home with a jolt when two of the small cars which had been running like clocks suddenly blew up; the second Austin Healey broke its head gasket and an Alpine broke its water pump, the first Healey having clutch failure.

At noon, with four hours still to run, there were only 16 cars left running, the three Fords, with the McLaren/Amon car now slightly in front of the Miles/Hulme car, the Bucknum/Hutcherson Ford was nine laps behind, and then came a whole row of Porsches making a stupendous impression by the way they were still cracking round and sounding indecently healthy, while the remaining Alpine–Renault Gordinis sounded as if they had only just started the race, and most incredible was the fact that the lone French-driven Mini-Marcos was still buzzing round. By 2pm rain started and everyone began to go very gently, not wishing to make any silly mistakes at this late hour.

Mini-Marcos No.50 races at 1966 Le Mans

A distinctive Marcos-Mini. The BMC-powered car was shared by Jean-Louis Marnat and Claude Ballot-Léna and became a crowd favourite

With barely 1 1/4 hours left to run there was horror in the Porsche pits as the Gregg/Axelson car arrived with a dead engine and something broken in the valve gear. This caused some alarm and despondency for the last thing that anyone expected was for one of the very healthy Porsche engines to break at this late stage. The Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari GTB driven by the two well-known Formula 3 drivers, Pike and Courage, had been going like a train, and suddenly a brake pipe was broken and Pike had to stand in the pits and restrain himself while it was mended and the system was bled of air, all of which was very frustrating at this late hour, but it did make people realise that no race is ever won until the end.

Ken Miles focused in Ford GT40 cockpit at 1966 Le Mans

Miles in situ aboard the #1 car

“The over-acting of the Shelby team had backfired, and McLaren and Amon were received as rather surprised winners”

In the final hour the rain ceased but the roads were streaming wet and the big Fords really looked like power boats as they circulated. Shelby still had his two cars running; Holman & Moody its sole survivor; Porsches had five very healthy cars and a sick one that was hoping to set off and complete one final lap as 4pm arrived. Alpine had four of its remarkably fast little 4-cylinder prototypes still running, the Mini-Marcos was still there, and the only Ferrari survivors were two standard production GTB coupés.

Ford GT40 in silver and red at 1966 Le Mans

Ken Miles recovered from early door trouble to lead the race, and should have won alongside Denny Hulme

During the last half-hour the two Shelby cars closed up together, Miles waiting for McLaren, who had lost the lead during the final pit stops for refuelling, and the light-blue and the black 7-litre Fords circulated quietly together, gathering up the gold car of Bucknum as they started what was obviously going to be their final lap and a thoroughly well-deserved victory for Ford, won through pulverising the opposition, even at the cost of heavy losses to their own forces. The atmosphere was still very wet and damp as the survivors toured round on their final lap, endeavouring to arrive at the finish as near to 4pm as possible. By a prearranged plan the Fords of McLaren and Miles arrived, headlights ablaze, in as near a dead-heat as they could judge, with Bucknum just behind them. It was indeed impressive and an undisputed victory, but the powerful line of Porsches was something of which Stuttgart could be very proud, the only blemish being that the sick car could not drag itself away on its last lap and had to be abandoned leaving 15 survivors in this hard and bitterly fought race.

Ford GT40 No.2 serviced in pits during 1966 Le Mans

You can see why Ford cleared all unnecessary personnel from its pit in the closing stages as the #2 is swamped

The celebrating was dampened somewhat when the timekeepers announced that McLaren and Amon had won, a dead-heat being impossible as the cars had started at 4pm on Saturday with the Miles/Hulme car already some yards ahead on the starting grid, so that as they had arrived side-by-side on the same lap on Sunday at 4pm the McLaren/Amon car must have covered a greater distance in the 24 hours, the difference being quoted as 20 metres. The over-acting of the Shelby team had backfired and McLaren and Amon were received as rather surprised and dissatisfied winners. Colin Davis and Jo Siffert won the Index of Performance with a works Carrera 6 Porsche running on fuel injection, and they also won the 2-litre class, having dominated it throughout the 24 hours.

Ford GT40 No.2 greeted by crowds at 1966 Le Mans finish

The winning Ford of McLaren and Amon is cheered down victory lane, once race officials had decided which of the cars had actually won after Ford’s bungled formation finish

Le Mans lights

• As and when the brake discs on the Fords became worn they were changed in their entirety, the disc being retained in place by the road wheel and easily detachable, using asbestos gloves.

• Three Matra-BRM 2-litre V8s took part but all fell out with troubles, the worst being a seized ZF gearbox on the Servoz-Gavin/ Beltoise car; Schlesser crashed and the Jaussaud/Pescarolo car had injection pump issues. The only claim to fame for the Bizzarrinis was that the rear-engined open one actually managed to spin away from the Le Mans start!

• The prize for endurance must surely go to the variety artist behind the grandstands who played an accordion for 24 hours non-stop, accompanied by a long line of guitar players who took shifts to keep up with him.

• It was a fine and powerful American victory, even if the first two cars were driven by two New Zealanders and a New Zealander and an Englishman. The third place car was driven by American Honda driver Ron Bucknum and NASCAR Stock-Car driver Dick Hutcherson, driving in his first sports car race. Not only were the first three cars American but all were using American Goodyear tyres. Many said Ford’s victory showed you could win Le Mans if you poured in sufficient dollars, but anyone who believed this had no idea of the fantastic amount of work put in from the time of the arrival in France, let alone in America.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

It started in 1964 and ended in 1969. Between these dates comes not quite the whole history of Ford at Le Mans, but the only part of it anyone’s likely to want to make a movie about.

The script we know already, or at least we think we do: Henry tries to woo Enzo; Enzo seems flirtatious, receptive even. Henry makes his move, Enzo performs a deft little sidestep, primly announces that he is not that kind of Italian sports car manufacturer and leaves Henry face flat on the floor, picking dust out of his teeth, muttering something about a different kind of interaction, involving his boot and Enzo’s bottom.

Burned and damaged Ford GT40 number 12 beside fence, rear destroyed, black and white photo.

The Attwood/Schlesser car endured a nightmare that year

Henry leaves, gets the GT40 done and duly uses it to kick Enzo’s ass all the way from Le Mans to Maranello. Ford then duly won the French classic four times on the trot, while Ferrari would have to wait until 2023 for its next taste of victory. Ass kicked. Job done.

But as I will be by no means the first to point out, history tends to be written by victors naturally inclined to, if not make stuff up, then certainly put their best foot forward; accentuate the positive; put their own, unique spin on proceedings.

Ford prototype race car number 140 on track, driver visible, grandstand and spectators in background, black and white photo.

Phil Hill proved the Lola to be rapid in Germany in 1964

But the real story – while a little less flattering for Ford when it is realised the massively resourced factory teams only won twice in the six years GT40s and their derivatives raced in France – is I think rather more interesting than the wham-bam bare bones outlined about. Not least because it doesn’t start in 1964 nor even with a Ford.

If Ken Miles was the unsung hero among the drivers in the GT40 story before Le Mans ’66 got made, then to this day the Lola Mk6GT is the equivalent among the cars.

Cutaway illustration of Ford GT40 showing engine, suspension, cockpit, and chassis layout, black and white drawing.

The decision to create the car that became the GT40 was made in 1963 with a view to it being at Le Mans the following year. For a brand-new car from a company with zero experience in building anything like what might be required, it was more of an impossible dream than an ambitious target. The Lola, and its creator, Eric Broadley, saved not only Ford’s face but its own bacon too.

By the summer of 1963 various design studies had made it clear Ford stood zero chance of getting a new car to Le Mans the following year. But in a moment of true Blue Peter worthiness, Broadley provided one he’d made earlier.

Collage of Chevrolet Corvair Monza GT prototype with side, front, rear, interior, and engine views, black and white photo.

Design studies of the Ford GT40 from 1963 included the creation of these clay models

Ford motor compnay

The Mk6 was a make-or-break car for Lola and just as it looked like breaking it, it made it – just not in a way that could have been imagined at the time.

Broadley had thrown all the money, time and talent into the project that the then-tiny Lola concern could muster. The result was the first mid-engined sports car to use an American V8 engine, pre-dating even the Lotus 30. It had monocoque construction in an era of space frames, and it was light, slippery and potentially very fast indeed.

“They had no time for setup, so literally raced what Broadley had turned up in”

But it took so long to prepare for Le Mans that drivers Richard Attwood and David Hobbs had to leave for France without it, Broadley himself driving it down, arriving too late for scrutineering and having to beg not to lose its place in the race.

Le Mans start with drivers running to cars, officials signaling, grandstands full of spectators, black and white photo.

John Surtees/Lorenzo Bandini’s Ferrari 330P lines up on pole for the 1964 start

They had no time to set the car up and no spare springs and roll bars with which to set it up. They literally raced what Broadley turned up in, which turned out to have gearing so wrong for the race they were losing 30mph down the Mulsanne Straight. But the car ran well for half the race until the gearbox jammed putting Hobbs into the wall and out of the race.

But Ford had seen enough, and you only have to look at the Mk6’s specification, let alone its doors cut into almost the centre of the roof to know where the GT40 came from, and how close the relationship was. With Broadley on board joining Brit-abroad Roy Lunn, who’d been working on the GT40 project from the start, and John Wyer coming across with Le Mans-winning experience from Aston Martin, the crucial pieces of the GT40 puzzle, complete with a state-of-the-art donor vehicle, were in place.

Ferrari race car number 21 surrounded by celebrating team and spectators, Shell signage visible, black and white photo.

Masten Gregory/Jochen Rindt (and potentially Ed Hugus) claimed an unlikely win in 1965

Work started at Broadley’s place in Bromley, before moving to Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough. Development driving was done mainly by Bruce McLaren and despite its accelerated gestation and myriad problems, the first car was still fast enough straight out of the box to qualify second on debut at the 1964 Nürburgring 1000km between two Ferrari prototypes, despite the event being treated more as a shakedown and test session than a proper race.

It retired with suspension problems. Despite having won five of the previous six Le Mans, Ferrari knew the threat the new 4.2-litre, V8-powered Ford posed. As the cars lined up the three GT40s were faced by no fewer than eight Ferraris in the prototype class alone, half of them works entries.

Ferrari race car number 20 on track with spectators and Necto signage, black and white photo.

Jean Guichet/Nino Vaccarella’s winning 275 P from 1964

They were right to be worried. Soon after the start the car driven by Richie Ginther and Masten Gregory swept past the Ferraris and started building a commanding lead. But it wasn’t long before things started to go wrong: first the car driven by Richard Attwood and Jo Schlesser caught fire and burned out, then the Ginther/Gregory car succumbed to transmission failure.

The strongest Ford, driven by Phil Hill and Bruce McLaren recovered from an early delay to lie third at dawn, but soon it too was out, leaving Ford with a new lap record for Hill as scant consolation for its efforts.

Ford GT40 number 10 racing ahead of Ferrari 250 GTO number 18 on track with signage, black and white photo.

Phil Hill set a new lap record in ’64

But if the failure in 1964 can be regarded as understandable given the newness of the car and the strength of the opposition, Ford had no such excuse for failing in 1965. It had taken away responsibility for racing from Broadley and Wyer and asked Carroll Shelby to prep the cars for racing, overseen by a new Ford division in Dearborn called Kar-Kraft. And it was Roy Lunn at Kar-Kraft who started investigating how the GT40 might be modified to take the 7-litre engine from the Ford Galaxie. Testing and computer predictions suggested the car might be 15 seconds a lap quicker at Le Mans, a 24-hour test at Riverside produced no insoluble problems, so it was decided that a brace of these ‘MkII’ GT40s (some just call them Ford MkIIs) would form the main thrust of Ford’s efforts at Le Mans. Had they instead piled all their efforts into giving the car they already had bulletproof reliability, along with the 4.7-litre V8 now being made ready for customer cars, the outcome of Le Mans 1965 could have been very, very different.

Ford GT40 number 10 racing ahead of Ferrari 250 GTO number 18 on track with signage, black and white photo.

The Ford line-up ahead of its Le Mans debut

But Ford was not the only top team to trip over its bootlaces. Ferrari did too. All three of Maranello’s prototypes retired, as did both Fords, leaving the race to an utterly unfancied 250LM entered by the US Ferrari importer that had qualified over 12 seconds a lap slower than pole time of the fastest Ford and slower than all but one of the customer GT40s. But by the time the race became an open goal, the Fords were no longer even on the pitch.

“Hansgen went down an escape road, unaware that it had been blocked off”

I won’t let Le Mans ’66 delay us here for too long because I’m guessing most of you have seen the film, and despite its many wilful inaccuracies (Shelby catching fire en route to winning Le Mans in 1959, Enzo Ferrari attending Le Mans in 1966, Ken Miles not attending in 1965, and Fiat buying Ferrari that year when in fact it was 1969. Ford’s first failure at Le Mans in ’64 isn’t even mentioned), the essential thrust of the story is already there.

Collage of Ford GT40 at Le Mans with racing, victory crowd, leading cars, and sand trap scene, black and white photo.

Clockwise from top left: Ford’s 1967 entry looked a lot different, with its MkIV crewed by Dan Gurney/ AJ Foyt; Brian Muir tries to dig his GT40 out of a bank in 1968; Pedro RodrÍguez/Lucien Bianchi took glory in 1968; Brian Muir tries to dig his GT40 out of a bank in 1968; Gurney and Foyt’s winner on parade in 1967

And those who have watched the film will know its tragic ending, where Ken Miles is killed testing the so-called ‘J-Car’ successor to the MkII (so called because it complied with appendix J of the Group 6 regulations for prototypes). I have however always thought it a shame that so little mention today is made of Walt Hansgen.

Hansgen was a good if perhaps not great driver, arriving too late on the scene but still managing to come fifth in the 1964 US Grand Prix driving for Team Lotus in what was only his second world championship F1 race and at the age of almost 45.

Ford GT40 number 6 with Gulf livery racing ahead of Porsche 906 number 64 on track, black and white photo.

Ickx leads Herrmann in the epic duel of 1969

He is also the man Mark Donohue credited more than any other for getting him started. But he was killed in a MkII during the test weekend for Le Mans ’66, losing control in rain and apparently electing to head down an escape road, unaware that it had been blocked off. After that accident Ford installed substantial cages inside the cars which probably saved the lives of Peter Revson, who flipped one testing at Daytona, and Mario Andretti, who had an enormous accident at Le Mans in 1967.

So Ford had won at Le Mans in 1966, even though the ACO’s reaction to Ford’s plan to dead heat the finish meant Ken Miles was robbed of the chance to become the first person to win the Daytona 24 Hours, Sebring 12 Hours and Le Mans 24 Hours in the same year. But Ford knew Ferrari would not stand still, and once work resumed on the J-car after Miles’ accident, the car’s aerodynamics – thought to be the reason for the crash – were totally revised, and the car renamed the Ford MkIV (following after the ill-fated MkIII road car), and wasn’t really a GT40 at all. But in the fourth season of the programme, the car was finally perfected.

As Donohue put it: “They were the fastest cars on the track – except for the Chaparral maybe – and yet they’d still lasted 24 hours. They were very durable, very powerful, very fast, and about as easy to drive as a big Cadillac.”

Porsche number 64 in pit surrounded by mechanics and photographers, spectators on balconies, black and white photo.

The Porsche’s slippery shape showed how outdated the GT40 was becoming

Three were entered for the 1967 race, Andretti crashing out, Donohue and Bruce McLaren setting off from pole but held back by myriad minor misfortunes to fourth at the flat while the sister MkIV of Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt took the win, four laps clear of the heroically driven 4-litre Ferrari P4 of Mike Parkes and Ludovico Scarfiotti. Having already won at Sebring, the MkIV’s two-race career was already over.

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It retired unbeaten and with a unique claim to fame as the only genuinely all-American race car to win Le Mans to this day. That the GT40 – one car, chassis 1075 – won the next two Le Mans says far more about the failures of others than any innate superiority of the – I think I can use the word ‘legendary’ – Gulf-liveried GT40.

There is some debate as to whether this car was actually derived from the Mirage M1 that had won at Spa the previous year but I don’t believe it is and can be discussed another time. But the shake up was caused by new rules limiting Group 6 prototypes to a 3-litre capacity. So no MkIVs, P4s or Chaparrals.

Smiling racing driver in suit with rose garland, celebratory close‑up, black and white photo.

Ickx timed it right, but played down the fight

Ferrari didn’t take part in the 1968 race while its brand new 312Ps proved woefully slow in 1969, the fastest qualifying behind four Porsches. An even more notable failure came from Ford itself. Its brand new DFV-powered 3-litre P68 or F3L prototype was fast but so terrifyingly unstable it never even got to France in 1968, having already ended the career of Chris Irwin in an appalling accident at the Nürburgring.

But perhaps the most significant failure belonged to Porsche. Its brand new 908s took the first three positions on the grid in 1968, but only one made the finish in third place, six laps down on the privately entered John Wyer GT40 of Pedro Rodríguez and the underrated Lucien Bianchi – racing in the production sports car category with its 5-litre capacity limit.

For Porsche, there was even less excuse in 1969, for not only did it have three apparently now debugged 908s on the grid, but also two of its mighty new 917s. But both 917s retired, the car of Richard Attwood and Vic Elford some 21 hours into the race with a four-lap lead. But by then one of the 908s had already crashed out while another succumbed to transmission failure shortly after the 917 retired.

Gulf‑liveried Ford GT40s in workshop with exposed engine and mechanics working, black and white photo.

The Gulf GT40s became perhaps the most memorable versions

All hope now lay with the last 908, fighting back after losing time with wheel bearing failure. It came down to a fight between the 41-year-old Hans Herrmann in the Porsche, a Le Mans stalwart looking finally to win the race having made his debut there in 1953, against the 24-year-old Jacky Ickx, racing an old car for a small private team, yet sniffing the most unlikely of victories. Had one of the other drivers available to Porsche – an Attwood, Elford, Siffert or Stommelen for instance – been on board it’s hard to see how even Ickx would have stayed with them in the tired old car.

Five years later Ickx wrote about those last few laps in a book called My Greatest Race. In it he said he knew the GT40 was never going to be as fast as the 908 on its own – the cars had qualified in, respectively 13th and 6th positions – so he enlisted his rival’s help, making no attempt to stop the Porsche sling-shotting past on the Mulsanne before tucking in behind it and getting towed along at speeds the Ford would never have achieved on its own.

Ford GT40 number 8 with driver in white suit and mechanics in uniforms, grandstands behind, black and white photo.

Peter Sadler and Paul Vestey were a private GT40 entry in 1969 but retired with electrical problems

But the move that won the race began all the way back at Arnage corner. On approach Ickx deliberately held back to give himself space, then hurled the GT40 through the corner. If he could just stay approximately in touch until the White House bend – the quickest, most difficult corner on the track, he backed himself to carry so much additional speed through the curve he’d be ahead before the Ford chicane. He practiced the move, perfected it, and won by about 100 yards, probably less than the distance he’d lost refusing to run across the track at the start of the race.

Ford’s final, and undoubtedly its least likely victory at Le Mans was down to this. Strangely enough, the one person not lost in praise for his performance was Ickx himself, who seemed rather dismissive of the whole affair: “First of all, an endurance race is not properly a race. Moreover, the Le Mans circuit is not a driver’s circuit. And again a battle between a Formula 1 driver and a veteran is not equal. I was lucky to be fated with a material handicap to make up for, for there is no glory in triumphing over a much older man…”

Ickx may not have been all that impressed. For everyone else it was a moment never to be forgotten.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

There’s a reason why the racing world is still talking about the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours a full six decades later. This was simply the race that had everything. Two motoring heavyweights, taking each other on at full force in a bitter duel the likes of which the sport had never seen before.

Nowadays multi-million dollar racing programmes are the norm, but in 1966 Ford’s financial clout set a new precedent. Henry Ford II threw open the company coffers, hired the best teams, drivers and minds, and oversaw the creation of a racing programme that would take the sport by storm on both sides of the Atlantic. All for revenge.

Ford had tried to buy Ferrari, but Enzo was having none of it, strung them along for a deal and then promptly shut the door and shredded the contract. Enraged, Ford made it his mission to crush the one thing Ferrari held dearest, his sporting pedigree. It’s the stuff of Hollywood scripts, and indeed became its own headline production that proved a box-office smash worldwide titled either Ford v Ferrari, or Le Mans ’66, depending where you were located.

The real story however goes much deeper than what you’ll see on the silver screen. In this special issue we’ve compiled the best of our period and retrospective coverage to give a full view of the events, characters, drivers, cars and forces involved with Le Mans 1966 and Ford’s rise to power. We were there to cover every session and development, and have enjoyed unprecedented levels of access to the key players and plotlines since.

On what will be the 60th anniversary of the world’s greatest, and perhaps most controversial, endurance race, we relive Ford v Ferrari and the numerous subplots and twists that ensured theirs would be a rivalry for the ages.

Read more about the past, present and future of Formula 1 in Motor Sport’s vast archive.
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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

“This is a victory meeting.” It wasn’t – far from it – and querying glances were exchanged. But Ford’s racing manager Leo Beebe didn’t blink: “Next year, we’re going to come back and win, and we might as well start right now.” ‘FoMoCo’ to the core, this former sports coach – baseball, basketball, football, track – and US Navy Phys Ed instructor didn’t mind dirty jobs. He’d locked the doors behind him on Ford’s Edsel embarrassment, for example. Yet motor sport had turned his stomach. Charged in April 1964 with winning the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Le Mans 24 Hours – no pressure! – his witnessing the grisly accidents of NASCAR ace Glenn ‘Fireball’ Roberts at Charlotte and Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs at Indy on consecutive May weekends caused him to question his role. He hadn’t anticipated its human cost and perhaps should have stayed in Brussels, selling cars and trucks.

Nobody had died at Le Mans 1965 – but Ford was mourning six retirements from six and having to suck up a sixth consecutive Ferrari victory. Relocating the programme’s powerbase from UK to US had led to a hurried introduction of a fast but unreliable car. Having created this 7-litre monster – almost 3000lb (ready to rumble) – Beebe was wondering if he should have let experienced John Wyer’s Ford Advanced Vehicles, created in Slough in autumn 1963, just get on with it. But Beebe had worked wonders elsewhere.

In 1964 Hemi-powered Plymouths finished 1-2-3 at Daytona; Team Lotus Powered by Ford collapsed at Indy; and the Ford GT, designed, built and based in England – but lumbered with a fragile Italian gearbox – instilled little optimism. So he cleared his desk of PR flimflam and created programme heads – Ray Geddes, a law graduate colleague of Carroll Shelby’s, got sports cars – and locked horns with the sport’s biggest names, with immediate effect: a Daytona 500 shortened by rain was won by Fred Lorenzen’s Holman & Moody-run Galaxie and a refocused Lotus scored a dominant victory at Indy.

So Beebe slept on it.

Drivers sprinting across track toward race cars at Le Mans running start, grandstands and sponsor signs visible, black and white photo.

The start in 1965. Pole-sitters Chris Amon/Phil Hill would retire with clutch failure

He went all in for Le Mans 1966. H&M and Alan Mann Racing of Byfleet were drafted to support incumbent Shelby American and between them they would prep, test and run no fewer than eight of those ‘monsters’.

“We were included to give the car longevity,” says Lee Holman, son of co-founder John. “We had 450 employees – far bigger than Shelby’s – and only one customer: Ford Motor Company. We could produce an entire car in our building and we applied that to the [Le Mans] car.”

This was racing gone corporate. Le Mans had never seen its like: 20 tons of spares and equipment, individual transporters, a 40ft mobile machine shop shipped from New York to Le Havre, and considerably more than 100 crew. Ford was ready at last to kick Enzo Ferrari where it would hurt most: due Sarthe.

Revenge was its trigger. When chief negotiator Donald Frey returned from Maranello in May 1963 with a flea in his ear and a signed autobiography in his suitcase, the combustible Henry Ford II lit up. Enzo had initiated takeover talks yet filibustered for days – interminable nights, actually – before walking. Jilted, Ford outlined its Plan B one week later: a Special Vehicles Department to conceptualise a high-performance sports-racer and liaise with outside agencies to oversee its build.

Having watched Ferraris fill the top six places at Le Mans, Ford representatives crossed to England to meet Colin Chapman, John Cooper and a shy former quantity surveyor. Lola’s Eric Broadley got the gig. Ford approved of his lack of ego and Mk6 GT: a low-line mid-engine coupé, powered by a Ford V8, that showed promise at Le Mans until its Colotti gearbox caused David Hobbs to crash after 13 hours. A one-year deal was signed on August 1 and Bruce McLaren was testing an updated ‘Ford’ by the month’s end.

Ford GT40 race car number 11 on track with sponsor boards and spectators, black and white photo.

Richie Ginther/Masten Gregory were quikc at Le Mans in 1964, but were let down by their gearbox

Ten months later Richie Ginther took his courage in both hands and blew by three Ferraris along the Mulsanne Straight on the second lap. This fairy tale beginning had a sad end: two GTs retired because of gearbox problems and a third caught fire. Three more retirements followed a fortnight later at the Reims 12 Hours – Ford was too impatient to beat Ferrari – and another questionable scheduling decision, to contest November’s Nassau Speed Week against more agile rivals on a bumpy, stop-go circuit, led to a clutch of DNFs. This wouldn’t do, so Beebe handed the cars to Shelby American in LA, having empowered Special Vehicles to build its second iteration at Kar-Kraft’s ’skunk works’ in Dearborn.

Shelby nursed a deep dislike of Enzo. Though looking and sounding diametrically different, they were uncomfortably similar beneath that Stetson and behind those shades: ambitious, imbued with a whiff of snake oil, and capable of gathering, motivating and orchestrating talented colleagues to create mythic brands greater than the sum of their parts.

Ford ‘folding’ allowed the Texan chicken farmer to move from his cramped Venice speedshop to a pair of vast hangars adjoining LAX. His roster included legendary designer/draughtsman/engineer/fabricator Phil Remington and English expat Ken Miles, 46, an astute and fetishistically fit tester/racer whose big chance this was. But the team was reliant on relegated Wyer for spares and (less so) advice. These long lines of communication, divided by a common language, did not promote Beebe’s common purpose.

“Time was running out as the American arm mused how best to flex its muscle.”

Time was running short as the American arm mused how best to flex its muscle. The earliest GTs used the aluminium 4.2-litre Fairlane V8 developed for Lotus’s 1963 Indy campaign. With a plan to switch to its quad-cam update scuppered by delays and resultant shortage, Cobra’s cast-iron 4.7-litre was fitted instead. A tailor-made V12 was considered next, but once again Ford had to cut its cloth, albeit much wider this time: a 650lb 7-litre pushrod suited to NASCAR, but which, to European eyes, was at odds with a cutting-edge competition car.

Ray Lunn, another expat, formerly of AC, Aston Martin, Jowett and Ford of Britain, oversaw this MkII conversion as tech boss of Special Vehicles. Integral from the off, he’d fallen out with Broadley, who jumped ship, and exchanged barbs with Wyer before returning to America in November 1964. A skilled engineer and wily politician, he was a crucial FoMoCo cog.

Red Ford GT40 race car number 24 with Gulf and Champion signage, trackside spectators, black and white photo.

F1 stars Hill and Stewart at Sebring the same year. They’d retire with engine failure

The prototype wasn’t completed until mid-May and yet Miles – though he and Lloyd Ruby had won February’s 2000km Daytona Continental in Shelby’s revised MkI – insisted on it for Le Mans. Though buzzing after lapping the test oval at 201mph, Miles didn’t take such decisions lightly. He knew MkI better than any racing driver had known any racing car because of his pioneering onboard data-logging work with Ford’s aerospace outfit, Aeronutronic: pressures and temps measured inside ducts and rpm recorded by an oscillograph. He and Remington had busted guts on its aerodynamics, brakes, suspension, tyres and wheels. Miles’ endorsement, therefore, carried weight.

Two of the unsorted 460bhp four-speed machines were sent to France for Shelby American, and Phil Hill’s grabbed a dramatic pole position, five seconds faster than John Surtees’ works Ferrari. Ford’s race, however, was a disorganised disaster. Though MkII ran one-two initially, and set fastest lap, all six cars retired before the seventh hour.

Lunn reckoned the mistaken refitting of a scrapped gear in the rush to be ready had cost it victory, while an official report blamed a misaligned oil hole and incorrectly adjusted clutch. But the devil lay in the big picture: the admin hell of five teams running two models in two types – five coupés and a roadster – fitted with three sizes of V8. Stretched head bolts, a recurrent problem that might have been cured had not Ford become sidetracked, sidelined three MkIs.

The pace told on Ferrari, too – all its works cars were retired by 2am – but privateers in reliable machinery gave Enzo a 1-2-3. Beebe had plenty to chew on over breakfast the next day.

With Indy won, he could concentrate on the French enduro that had made Ferrari’s name in America. In a bid to reduce red tape and instil a tight-knit atmosphere atop a giant industrial pyramid, his Le Mans Committee allowed departmental heads – John Cowley from NASCAR had replaced Geddes – to join hands, or step on each others’ toes, every fortnight. Spurred by defeat, this distant race was suddenly up close and personal, even to the guys on the assembly line.

Group of men in casual motorsport setting with Goodyear jackets, bus with Goodyear Racing signage, black and white photo.

Beebe front and centre and flanked by Miles and McLaren (left), and Hulme, Amon (right) in 1966

Testing recommenced in August and Miles and Hill managed just nine hours of running in four days at Daytona. A 24-hour test in December was interrupted by engine and brake failures. And only 18 hours could be completed at Sebring in mid-January before the gearbox quit. So the inaugural Daytona 24 Hours would be a plunge into the February dark, physically and metaphorically.

Ferrari stayed away and MkIIs finished 1-2-3-5. Yet not everyone was convinced by this sledgehammer. Wyer and Mann favoured the small-block route: better mpg and easier on tyres and brakes. Thus Sebring in March was billed as a showdown between Ford strategies, as well as against Ferrari. Mann built the lightest GT40s yet (2025lb) and put Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart in one; it qualified third and led the opening lap. But Ford of America won the (half) day. Though its victor – the lightweight X-1 roadster, one of two aluminium chassis built by Abbey Panels – was unsuitable for Le Mans because of draggy aerodynamics, bigger was now officially better.

“Engines let down our cars,” says Alan Mann Racing fabricator Jim Rose. “They were bloody awful. We only found out after the Le Mans test [in April] that we’d be running 7-litres. The next thing, six of us – plus my wife, who had friends up in the Valley – were on a plane to LA. All the teams worked together at Shelby’s for about six-seven weeks. You had the right tool in your hand and so you went down the line doing the same job, getting faster each time. We didn’t know which car was going where, so there was no favouritism. Of course, when we got ours home we rebuilt them the way we wanted to.”

And that ought to have been that. But Lunn, craving self-sufficiency, pushed hard for his J-Car to be considered. X-1 had been gathering data for this radical aluminium-honeycomb design, the programme’s first all-American, so that it might tackle the Test. Thus Ford arrived with two GT40s and two MkIIs, plus its latest interloper, and endured a terrible weekend. Pushing unadvisedly hard in the rain, 46-year-old Walt Hansgen crashed his MkII at 150mph. The following day, J-Car – crammed with recording instrumentation – lapped a second slower than Hill’s 1965 pole but two seconds faster than Miles, who slid his MkII into a sandbank.

Was it all turning Blue Oval-shaped?

Group of men in casual motorsport setting with Goodyear jackets, bus with Goodyear Racing signage, black and white photo.

Ford’s corporate team await the fomation finish that would prove a PR disaster.

Tests at the Kingman oval and Riverside – 24 hours in three blocks of eight – proved MkII marginally faster in top speed and considerably more prepared than J-Car. It had been an unnecessary distraction. Meanwhile, an engine-with-gearbox was completing simulated laps of Le Mans in a Dearborn test cell. It hit its 48-hour target in the last week of May and 12 of them – lighter by 40lb due to magnesium oil pan and aluminium heads and front cover – were assembled, tested and crated to LA.

“We weren’t allowed to touch them,” says Rose. “Not even take the rocker covers off. They’d detuned them. NASCAR ones had 515bhp, but they ran 480 at Le Mans. They tried twin carbs but it used more fuel.”

Holman: “The compression ratio was dropped and they were only turning about 6400rpm; at Daytona we were turning 7500-8000rpm.”

European observers noted how more organised and cogent this attack was. For instance, Remington and H&M had developed respectively a quick-change caliper and rotor to enable crucial brake swaps in just minutes. But that’s not to say there weren’t internal rivalries – drivers, managers, teams and tyres – in need of massaging. They weren’t nasty but they were potentially divisive.

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“I thought the atmosphere was good,” says Rose. “We got on well with Shelby’s, which had remarkably few American mechanics: Charlie Agapiou and Bill Eaton were English, plus there were Canadians, New Zealanders and Japanese. Both American teams worked very hard and wondered why we never stopped messing about (yet won everything). We put a Mercedes sticker on the silver car and that caused no end of aggravation.

“Maybe there was more animosity between Shelby and Holman & Moody. The only real problem we had was with the parts guy. He wouldn’t give the Brits anything and pretended not to understand us.”

Holman: “It was tense, in that Ford expected to win and there were three teams each trying to do the best they could. Shelby had got so far in debt to Ford over the Mustang and Cobra projects that he’d become a division of Ford, albeit a fairly independent one. So his was the factory team. Both Alan Mann’s and our drivers were told not to pass a Shelby American car unless a Ferrari was passing it, too.

“My father’s attitude was, ‘We’re here at Ford’s pleasure. If they want us to do something, we’ll do it. It owns the cars and can do whatever the hell it wants with them.’ He was a team player.

“But there was rivalry within Ford: Shelby was backed by Lee Iacocca, who was trying to sell Mustangs and Cobras; Bill Innes of Engine and Foundry and Henry Ford II backed us. There was more infighting over who controlled the budget than there was between us and Shelby American.”

Some others didn’t see eye-to-eye either.

Holman: “When my father realised that we were going to race in Europe in 1966, he sent me to work with Alan in 1965. I was 20, had a Ford credit card in my pocket and travelled around Europe helping run Cobra Coupés. That’s when I found out how mad Alan was with Shelby. With Alan’s help, we had developed racing Mustangs that basically were a ’64 Falcon rally package on a Mustang body. These won the Tour de France and Shelby asked for one. Ford sent him the winning car and he copied it to make the GT350. Alan was so pissed about it that his 1965 contract with Ford of America included a clause stating that he had the right to withdraw from an event if Shelby ever showed up.”

Ford’s driver line-up was unsettled, too. Sadly, Hansgen had succumbed five days after his crash. Thankfully Ruby, AJ Foyt and Stewart survived theirs – at Indianapolis (airport!), Milwaukee and Spa – but they were ruled out by injury. The excellent Denny Hulme replaced Ruby. Though he was as laid back as Lloyd, who often dozed between stints. Insomniac Miles worried that the New Zealander wasn’t invested.

Another unsettling rejig was required when Dick Thompson, in for Stewart at Alan Mann Racing, was disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct after colliding with a slower Ford during practice. The car was threatened with disqualification initially and Beebe put his neck on the block by bluffing a total withdrawal. The eventual compromise involved only Thompson falling on his sword.

Men in suits on platform at motorsport event, balcony crowd above, Ford and BP signage, black and white photo.

Beebe with Henry Ford II. Ford’s son, Edsel, is in front

The big Fords dominated practice in the absence of Ferrari’s fastest – Surtees had dashed to Maranello for a ‘me-or-him’ meeting with Enzo about manipulative team manager Eugenio Dragoni – and Dan Gurney took pole, ahead of Miles, John Whitmore and McLaren; Hill was sixth and Ronnie Bucknum ninth in the fastest H&M car. Rain 30 minutes before the start caused flutters but Honorary Race President Henry Ford II had more than eight reasons to feel confident as he waved the flag.

Whereupon Miles clipped a hesitant Whitmore and both pitted at the end of the first lap, as did Paul Hawkins’ MkII: the latter had a broken driveshaft; a clutch adjustment cost Whitmore’s Alan Mann car 10 minutes; but Miles was stationary for mere seconds as a door ajar was slammed shut.

The pace was fierce and three MkIIs retired before midnight: diff, clutch, head gasket. Then Hill’s suffered front suspension failure. But Ferrari’s trio of works 330 P3s, outnumbered and outgunned, despite a fuel-injected DOHC 4-litre V12, also faltered and Fords held the first six places as dawn broke. Team-mates Gurney and Miles were reprising their Sebring battle – and were again admonished for it. McLaren, now on Goodyear inters – Bruce telling co-driver Chris Amon: “Go like hell!” – were recovering from delays caused by chunking Firestone wets in the changeable conditions. Shelby American had the race in its pocket but Ford worried that its drivers might burn a hole.

Gurney was asleep when Grant burst into the trailer at 9am to tell him that the lead car’s water temperature was off the clock; its engine cooked in less than an hour. The ‘EZ’ sign was hung and Miles took the ‘opportunity’ to close on McLaren. The potential for calamity loomed still and Ford’s top brass had a big decision to make. It plumped for a dead heat. There’d never been one before and the organisers, excited at the prospect, were amenable. McLaren and Miles were informed prior to their final stints and neither was excited at the prospect. The latter was on the cusp of a historic Triple Crown – Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans – and felt that his extensive, exhaustive input deserved reward; a tie would be a defeat in his view. McLaren, normally swan-like compared to the hawkish Englishman, was fizzing, too.

Holman: “There was rivalry within Shelby American, because it wanted Miles to win, but McLaren was quicker so his car was sabotaged. The other two Shelby cars listed heavier springs – 1100-1200lb instead of 900lb – and shock settings in their reports so that the McLaren car would copy them; I don’t know if its crew realised it was bad information, but I do know that Bruce did not like the way the car handled. He complained to my father, and to Alan Mann and Henry Ford II, and a group of mechanics – some of Alan’s crew and two of our workers – stayed over the night before the race to change the suspension. To my knowledge, [Carroll] Shelby wasn’t aware. That’s one of the reasons why Bruce wasn’t receptive to trying to make a correct photo finish.”

Another was the unnecessary tyre change – in McLaren’s view, ordered by Goodyear to banjax Firestone-contracted drivers – that cost him the lead at the last scheduled fuel stop. Holman: “Shelby always wanted to run Goodyears because of his tyre store in California.”

The crowd was unaware of the undercurrents as the stage-managed MkIIs drew level in streaming rain, the third-placed car of Ronnie Bucknum/Dick Hutcherson riding shotgun, 12 laps in arrears. Nor did the main protagonists know that their dead heat was a dead duck. The organisers had backtracked: McLaren had started 20 metres behind Miles and that figure could not be ignored in the result.

“The most important thing was for Ford to win,” says Rose. “When our cars retired we stayed on in case our help was needed. I don’t remember worrying about any controversy. I was just glad we’d beaten Ferrari.”

Miles appeared to back off in protest approaching the chequer. Holman, on pit road at the time, insists McLaren accelerated. According to Amon, Hulme, as his co-driver feared, wasn’t overly bothered by events but Miles was teary and bitter. Ford’s sweet revenge ended on a sour note, and because the ‘injured party’ was killed testing the J-car at Riverside that August, the echo of its human cost can still be heard, 50 years later.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

Daytona Beach, Sunday, 6th February 1966

The first race in the 1966 Manufacturers GT Championship was held on the road/track circuit at Daytona Beach in Florida. This year’s Continental had been extended to a full 24-hour race with a line-up of 60 cars. The circuit makes use of all but a few yards of the banked stock car track with 1.3 miles of artificial infield flat turns giving a total length of 3.81 miles. Two of the three banked turns are 31deg. and capable of speeds up to 170mph while the shallower banked turn in front of the pits is a much flatter curve.

With a fair behind the main grandstand this race was a copy of the Le Mans 24 Hours, but unlike Le Mans, which has about six hours of darkness, this race had a full 12 hours of night driving.

A team of three Ford MkIIs were entered by Shelby-American. These cars were the successors to the Ford GT40 and use the 7-litre Ford engine. Other detail changes have been made and include vented die-pack copper discs, the vents in these run at an angle through the disc with big air-intakes ducting cold air to the centre of the disc. Ford was not happy that this was going to last and had mounted the discs on the hubs in such a way that they could be very quickly changed. The drivers for these cars were B. McLaren/C. Amon, D. Gurney/J. Grant and K. Miles/L. Ruby.

Ford GT40s racing on Daytona banking, 1966

The 1966 Daytona 24 Hours was both the first World Championship event of the year, and Daytona’s first 24-hour effort. The mixed banking and road course proved a challenge. Miles leads the pack for the rolling start

Another team of similar cars was entered by Holman & Moody for W. Hansgen/M. Donohue and R. Bucknum/R. Ginther. The latter of these two cars had fully automatic transmission. Also using Fords, this time the GT40, was the Essex Wire Corporation. Managing this team was David Yorke, who was the successful team manager of the Vanwall team.

Two other Ford GT40s were entered, one a fully private entry, the other from Ford Vehicles of England was being driven by P. Sutcliffe/B. Grossman. This car had been at Sebring the previous week doing tyre tests on the new Dunlop CR70 dryweather racing tyre. In common with one or two other Dunlop users, this car was using this tyre in the race, some using the new whitespot mix.

Opposition to the Ford teams came mainly from the two private Ferrari teams and the many private entries. Ecurie Francorchamps had a 365 P2 prototype for L. Bianchi/J. lckx and a 275 LM prototype for L. Dernier/G. von Ophem. North American Racing Team had two similar cars for P. Rodríguez/M. Andretti and J. Rindt/B. Bondurant, plus another 275 LM for Follmer/Wester. Radio Caroline’s 275 LM was driven by I. Ireland/M. Hailwood. Peter Clark’s 275 LM was driven by himself and Mark Koenig, while D. Piper was teamed with R. Attwood in his 275 LM. Team Chamaco’s similar car was driven by V. Wilson/D. Hulme, while three more private owners made up the Ferrari contingent.

A works Porsche team was entered with one of the recently announced Carrera 6 prototypes in the hands of H. Herrmann/H. Linge. The other two cars were works 904s for G. Mitter/J. Buezzetta and U. Schuetz/G. Klas. An assorted collection of private Porsches made up the rest of the Porsche contingent.

There was one more car which was a serious contender, this being the automatic Chaparral II GT prototype. This car was to be driven by P. Hill/J. Bonnier, two of the most experienced long-distance racers there are. The car, which takes much from the original Chaparrals, is a very light coupé which uses a selection of engines. It is beautifully finished in a very functional way. Jim Hall, whose brainchild this car is, has a full-width spoiler across the tail, the angle of which can be hydraulically altered with a pedal control for cornering or straight driving; the same spoiler can swing right up to act as an air brake as it will when running at Sebring and Le Mans, but for Daytona the brakes are not used hard enough to warrant its use.

Ford GT40 number 73 in Daytona pit stop, 1966

The Shelby Ford of Gurney/Grant in the pits. Early stops for the team didn’t go well due to some fumbles, but they came good in the race

The rest of the field was made up of a variety of odd machines, ranging from a Ford Cortina GT to a vintage GTO Ferrari, with varying Cobras, Mustangs, TR4s, Alpines, Barracudas, etc. Final practice and timing was very slow to get under way due to the cold (34 deg. F), windy conditions. After lunch, however, things began to warm up (but not the weather). The Ford teams were beginning to put in a lot of laps and the Shelby-American Team was doing timed pit stops. However, these were not very good, mainly due to the unwieldy organisation and the lack of a strict overall team manager. Several of the Fords had required body modifications due to the wider Goodyear and Firestone tyres. The top of the right-hand wing had been cut away on the MkIIs to enable that tyre to pop up through the wing when the car was at speed on the banking.

The Chaparral spent much of the afternoon running-in a new 5-litre engine as the smaller 4.4 was not pushing out enough power. After Hall was satisfied everything was in order, Bonnier and Hill were sent out to do their qualifying laps.

The two 365 P2 Ferraris were both setting good times quite early on and Rodríguez’s time of 1min 59.2s was fastest for most of the afternoon. However, just before practice was due to end, Ken Miles, last year’s Continental winner, clocked 1min 57.8s, a speed of 116.43mph. Bonnier, in the Chaparral, was not to be outdone and after a few very fast laps he got down to within 0.2s to put him on the front row of the grid next to Miles. The slowest car, a GT Alfa, was lapping in almost twice the time of the fast cars.

Race day was cold and windy with the prospects of a hard frost during the night. At 2:30 the cars lined up on the pit road in grid order. The Chaparral had sprouted an external oil cooler and all the Fords which had holes cut in the wings now had fibreglass domes covering them. The starting procedure was that the cars would follow a pace car for one complete lap of the banking, then halfway round the next lap on the back straight, the flag would drop and that would be the start of the 24 hours. The 60 cars, well spread out, circulated once, then the flag fell and they were off.

Bonnier in the Chaparral led on the first lap, but this was the only lap he did lead. Miles took his Ford MkII through into first place on the second lap, with Bonnier close behind; next came Hansgen with another Ford, then Rodríguez and Bianchi with the 365 Ferraris. As the leaders completed their second lap, they were already up amongst the tail-enders. It was a frightening sight to see the first group of cars travelling at 170mph on the banking passing the slow cars, which were not even doing 100, sometimes two abreast. It would have been different if the slow cars had kept to the bottom of the banking but invariably they were halfway up. On several occasions two of the very fast cars would pass a slower one on either side.

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Ginther made an early pit stop in the automatic Ford MkII with brake trouble due to a faulty master cylinder. This was repaired, but not before they had lost many laps. A great disappointment came on lap 11 when Bonnier came into the pits with what he thought was a broken fan belt hitting him on the back of his seat. After a quick check, when nothing was found out of place, he was off again two laps down on the leaders. Richards/Cuomo brought their so-called Austin-Healey Sprite prototype into the pits with coil trouble.

With the Chaparral out of the immediate running the leaders were still Miles, Hansgen, Rodríguez and Bianchi and these four cars were still loosely grouped. Rodríguez was the first of the leaders to break off for fuel, this he did on his 30th lap. One of the mobile obstacles, two women in an Alpine, pulled into the pits with handling difficulties, but continued when nothing was found wrong. When the Chaparral came in to refuel Bonnier complained of stiff steering and at certain times it was binding. After a few more laps he was in again, this time for a long stop while the subframe at the front was removed to carry out repairs on the steering. By the time Hill went out again this potential winner was right down amongst the tail-enders.

Ferrari number 21 racing at Daytona 1966

The NART Ferrari of RodrÍguez and Andretti was a threat to Ford

At 5pm the lead stood Ford, Ford, Ferrari, Ford, Ferrari, Ford, the latter Ford being Scott’s Essex Wire-entered GT40 which was leading the sports class. The works Porsches were going well, the prototype Carrera 6 looking very stable. Darkness had by now fallen and the temperature was beginning to drop. The lead changed briefly just after 7pm when, due to pit stops, the Miles/Ruby Ford lost the lead to the Hansgen/Donohue Ford for a period of seven laps. Rodríguez handed over to Andretti and mechanics with heavy hammers beat the wing up a bit more as with softening suspension the right-rear tyre was touching. This wasted some time and the NART Ferrari was never to make it up again. At 7pm came the first official placings.

To give press and teams an almost immediate bulletin Oklahoma University’s computer was programmed to give the results and any other information at a moment’s notice. Perhaps it was Russian intervention but the information printed and handed out was never right, which caused confusion in the pits when team managers found their No. 1 car was two laps behind their No. 2 car instead a two laps ahead.

“It was frightening to see the leaders lap slower cars at over 170mph”

At about 8pm three of the privately-owned Ferraris retired, all with gear troubles. They were those of Hulme/Wilson, Ireland/Hailwood, and the Ecurie Francorchamps 275 LM. Epstein and Hawkins’ 250 LM Ferrari was having gear trouble but not serious enough to retire. By 9pm the two leaders were unchanged and the Chaparral held the fastest lap with a speed of 115.10 mph, although the chances of catching up any except the tail-enders was negligible. When Hill made his next pit stop a hole was found in the exhaust, so more time was lost as a new pipe was fitted. American Airlines engineer William Wonder’s private GT40 lost a wheel on track, so the driver came back to the pits to collect a spare, locking cap, hammer and jack. Having got everything ready, no pit steward could be found to accompany him back to the car as per regulations. Up until this time the pits were crowded with overgrown college kids with ‘Pit-Steward’ on their backs giving a mass of idiotic instructions to the many professional motor-racing circus who were freezing in the pits. After five minutes a steward was found and the wheel duly fitted. but soon afterwards the car was retired.

Sunoco Corvette number 6 in Daytona pits, 1966

Roger Penske’s Chevrolet Stingray was a class winner

Unlike Le Mans, where there is a lot going on all night, Daytona was a bit dead. This may have been to do with the still falling temperature, which was down to freezing by midnight and still falling. Also no alcohol is sold in the ground, Pepsi Cola having bought all liquid rights, and that is no good for warming frozen racing personnel. The Chaparral was still pushing on and Hill re-broke the record with a speed of 115.8mph. As the night wore on and the temperature dropped to 26 deg. F. just before dawn, Bianchi retired the Belgian 275 LM with a broken piston. Then as dawn began to break Ford made its disc changes, taking only 4 1/2 minutes to change two discs, four tyres, refuel and oil. This is not bad going but it must be remembered that the brakes were fairly cool. Whereas at Le Mans the discs will be much hotter, making the change much more difficult.

After completing 318 laps the upright of the hub carrier suddenly broke on the Chaparral and Hill limped back to the pit to retire. Everyone in the Chaparral team seemed very happy for they had learned a lot in a short time, and if all goes well up to Sebring, when two cars will be ready, perhaps Ford and Ferrari won’t have it all their own way there, or in the European races.

Leading the sports class at dawn were the Essex Wire Corporation GT40s. One car had only 4th and 5th gears left, but with the low-down torque of the 4.7-litre engine this was not affecting the times too much, while the leading car was having a fairly trouble-free run. Behind the two Fords lay the works 904 Porsches, which were lapping with the clockwork proficiency that is expected from the Stuttgart firm. Splitting the two Porsches up to 8am was the Epstein/Hawkins 250 LM Ferrari, but this retired with transmission trouble. The Porsche 6 prototype enjoyed trouble-free consistency and none of the tyre-touching problems others were suffering. At dawn its race speed was 99mph and its position seventh between the two Essex Wire cars.

Sports prototypes 17, 23, 25 cornering at Daytona 1966

Guenther Klass/Udo Schuetz’s Porsche 904 leads the Ferrari 250 LM of Mark Konig/Peter Clarke/Bob Hurt

With the first daylight pit-stops for tyre changes, blanking over radiators was removed. On McLaren’s car this was a little late because when the mechanic checked the water a geyser shot up, smothering the car with rusty water, and a redseal was put in to cure a suspected leak. McLaren and Amon had the slowest time of the three works Fords to conserve their car, and this was the reason they were lying fifth, 15 laps behind the leader. Another retirement at dawn was the Holman & Moody MkII. The automatic broke after 1350 miles of hard driving.

When Gurney came in with the second-place Ford there was a black tyre mark on the left-hand side from when he “hit a Mustang on the banking”. As Grant took the car out it was noticeable he was not using the lower gears, and Gurney admitted he couldn’t get 1st or 2nd.

“The result shows that Ford has solved some of the problems of Le Mans last year”

As the sun got higher so the temperature rose rapidly, making this the warmest day to date. Essex Wire’s leading sports car suddenly came into the pit with its gearbox split open, while the other car also stopped, the internals of its gearbox having gone completely. So, suddenly, Porsche was leading the sports class and the works team was lying sixth, seventh and eighth overall. The Corvette entered by Roger Penske had hit a Cobra at dawn and to continue running most of the nose was amputated, leaving a large open mouth which continually looked as if it was about to snap up the smaller cars it passed. On his 499th lap, Dan Gurney set a new record with a time of 1m 57.7s, 116.51mph.

Two of the privately-entered Ferraris were still running, thanks to being able to cannibalise from the retired cars. Piper had replaced both rear hub carriers, as did Peter Clark after his drive broke at the universal. Piper also had trouble with his alternator but was able to replace it. Follmer and Wester in the second NART Ferrari 275 LM retired with alternator trouble.

Ford GT40 number 98 celebrates Daytona win, 1966

Off the mark: the winning Ford crew poses. Ken Miles (complete with trademark duffle coat) is left with team-mate Lloyd Ruby

As midday passed and the last fuel and tyre changes took place it was obvious that Ford was going to score a 1, 2, 3 victory. That the opposition came from private owners and not from a full factory team takes some of the publicity from this win, but it shows that Ford has straightened out some of the problems of Le Mans last year. The British-entered Ford GT40 was unfortunate, for after having run for 23 1/2 hours it broke the crankshaft out on the circuit.

“Chaparral showed that perhaps ford and ferrari won’t have it all their own way this year”

At the speeds they were doing in the closing minutes the Fords looked as though they could have done another 24 hours, while the Porsches could definitely have gone on for another session. The German team had merely poured in fuel, changed tyres and drivers, but nothing else. So, for its first race, the Carrera 6 made an excellent showing. The flag was supposed to fall opposite the pits but due to another breakdown in communications the flagman suddenly found all the cars had gone into the pits and there was no-one to flag.

Rodríguez brought the 365 P2 Ferrari into fourth, a very creditable achievement for a private entry. In the GT class the Penske-entered Corvette driven by Guldstrand and Moore won in 12th overall, completing 575 laps at 91.60mph. The winners completed 2570 miles, at an average speed of just over 108 mph.

Daytona deliberations

  • It is hard to combine banking with road courses as cars can never be set up for the best of both. Due to this, suspension and transmission problems were accentuated. It is theoretically dangerous to have very slow cars running with very fast cars in a race of this length, and most drivers had tales of wild moments during the night, but, as Bill France pointed out, there were no accidents.
  • For their first 24-hour race the basic organisation was good, but the various working officials in many cases were out of touch, childish and lacked the professional touch which one now finds at Watkins Glen.
  • The Ford team was badly top-heavy but when they come to Europe many of the executives will be left behind, and this can only improve their efficiency.
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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

He was known as Teddy Teabag, says Charlie Agapiou. “He’d use one teabag per race and by the end he was just drinking hot water!” A snapshot of Ken Miles – British to the end though US-based, maximising his resources, completely unfazed by anyone else’s view of him. Ken Miles – unseen buttress to the Carroll Shelby operation, and most famous for not winning Le Mans.

That muddled triumph of 1966, when three Ford MkIIs bellowed across the line at La Sarthe to claim victory for the Blue Oval without knowing who was first, forms the dramatic core of the fact-based film Le Mans ’66 (or Ford v Ferrari in the US), and surprisingly it picks out a relatively unknown English driver and engineer to head the US cavalry against the bad guys – in this case that foreign fiend, Enzo Ferrari.

So does a rangy, laconic bloke from Sutton Coldfield deserve a film built round him? Is he the key to Cobra and Ford MkII success? He certainly won a bundle of races right from the start, in cars he modified himself to go absurdly fast. That’s a good mix – rapid driver, inventive engineer, intuitive tester. And if you throw in your lot with a powerful Texan who can assemble the might of the Ford Motor Company behind him to tackle the biggest prize in European racing, then you have the makings of a pretty good story. And that’s real life, before Hollywood gets its hands on it.

Far from the film lights, and California, Ken Miles displayed mechanical talent through his 1930s Midlands childhood playing with bikes and cars and visiting Donington Park. He’d built an Austin 7 special by the age of 15, abandoned school to join Wolseley a year later (his wife Mollie later wrote that “as a scholar he was a dead loss”), joined up within days of war being declared in 1939, and became a staff-sergeant in REME, the army’s engineering arm. There he developed a respect for American machinery, and in 1943 wrote to Motor Sport about its “great promise” and suggesting he would build a “supercharged 4WD trials job of my own design”.

Ken Miles in helmet shouting then smiling in race car

Standard issue was never going to be enough for this ambitious man.

What he did do was drop a blown Mercury V8 into a Frazer Nash which went like stink on hillclimbs and circuits. Miles was marking his territory but the British motor industry, struggling back from war, wasn’t interested. A stint building 500cc F3 cars proved a financial failure, so when a Wolseley contact offered him a job in a Californian MG dealer he jumped, with wife and young son. December 1951 brought a permanent goodbye to a ration-stifled, inward-looking England. Within four months at Gough Industries this beaky beanpole was racing and winning in a standard MG TD, while also building an MG special which won its first race in 1953. A year or so after, he produced The Flying Shingle, another MG hybrid which showed the dominant Simcas and Porsches the way home.

Photos show him usually wearing a tie, hair neatly parted, BRDC badge evident. He might be living under West Coast sunshine, but he doesn’t look American. There was a trace of Brum in his speech, and he talked from the side of his mouth – some Americans didn’t understand him. It wasn’t affectation, says his son Peter today: crashing a motorbike paralysed the facial nerves on one side. Nor did he modify his demeanour: first-hand memories quoted in Art Evans’ book on him use words like outspoken, aggressive, opinionated, sure of himself, maverick – as well as warm, fun, nice to be around, keen to help others. One day he’d be your best mate; the next he’d walk right past you. There’s another message too: Miles drove his cars “right out to the edge”; second would never be good enough. The impression is of a man who saw his path and was not to be deflected; a good friend if you weren’t trying to direct him. No surprise that in 1955 an argument brought his departure from Gough.

He’d been noticed, though. Racer Tony Parravano loaned him his Maseratis and Ferraris that year, and as “the number one 1500cc pilot” he began to drive Porsches extremely quickly for marque importer John von Neumann.

Despite that early departure from school Miles proved a literate writer, contributing many articles to titles including Road & Track, about wearing helmets (he always did) or trying to persuade the blazered West Coast crowd not to worry about pro drivers, a sticky point socially. He also wrote praising the little guy – the shoestring privateer racing for pleasure, not glamour. Maybe it was such disruptive views that nettled people: he was soon embroiled in an unpleasant anti-Miles print campaign. Objecting to being made to take a rookie test, he resigned from the SCCA and was refused re-entry. As a three-time president of the California Sports Car Club and the man steamrollering the 1500cc classes this was an embarrassing spat that looks entirely personal. In creating a competitive programme Miles had upset the old boy world of Southern California racing.

Still, in 1956/57 those 550 Porsches were bringing in the silverware – 24 wins and 12 seconds; in between Miles decided a better mix was to drop a four-cam Porsche unit into a Bobtail Cooper, which was a winner until Porsche importer von Neumann got a message from Stuttgart saying stop it. More ingenuity, casting the ideas net wide.

Faster cars were now coming Ken’s way despite falling out with von Neumann – Otto Zipper’s RSK Porsches and Ferraris, even faster Porsches for wizard tuner Vasek Polak – and as Ken often contested the big-engined class he was mixing with up and comers like Phil Hill and Carroll Shelby. They noticed.

Ken Miles holding hands with wife in vintage photo

Ken Miles and his wife Mollie. Miles may not have achieved much academically, but had prodigious talent as a driver

By now a naturalised american citizen, he had opened his own tuning and preparation shop in North Hollywood, where in 1961 a Londoner called Charlie Agapiou saw a sign saying ‘English mechanic wanted’. “I walked in and Ken took me on right away,” says Charlie today from his California Rolls-Royce showroom. “I didn’t know he raced, but soon we were going to meetings in his ’54 station wagon towing the Alpine. I loved it, and so did he, so much so it was bad for the business! Ken was both a great boss and an impressive driver.” That was confirmed by his winning the 1961 USRRC championship.

That Sunbeam Alpine was a flag-waver for the British maker, but noting Shelby’s experiments with a V8 in an AC, it asked Miles to fit a 260 Ford V8 in an Alpine. “We had six weeks to do it, and we did it,” says Charlie, London still clear in his accent. “He was fast, and I learned so much from him.”

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Meanwhile Shelby, now retired from racing, asked Miles to test his Cobra-to-be and recognising a good development man made him an offer. “Ken closed the shop and I was out of a job!”, says Charlie (although in fact it was the tax authorities who made that decision…) “Then a few weeks later he invited me to join him at Shelby. I said I didn’t know enough, but he said ‘you bluffed me, you can bluff them’”.

Soon Miles was competition manager/development driver for Shelby American, and thanks to his rigorous work and firm project management the unsophisticated 289 Cobras got faster, taking SCCA GT honours in 1963 and the USRRC constructor’s crown in ’64, all leading to the low-drag Daytona Coupé which took the WSC GT title in 1965. But Miles was frustrated, says Agapiou. “He couldn’t just watch, he wanted to drive.”

By now the GT40 and Ford’s project to unseat Ferrari was under way. Books, and the film, love to depict this as a personal bullfight between capricious Enzo and a red-faced Henry Ford II, incensed at Ferrari rejecting his buyout offer. Leo Levine’s 1968 book The Dust and the Glory tells a different story: that the GT40 scheme was driven by Lee Iacocca, Ford’s vice-president. Unlike Henry II he believed racing sold cars and instigated the Total Performance programme that embraced Indy, NASCAR and drag racing plus saloons and rallies in Europe. But with nothing to contest the sports car arena Ford turned to – Slough, creating Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) combining Eric Broadley with John Wyer and US-based British engineer Roy Lunn, both of them involved in Shelby’s 1959 Le Mans victory with Aston Martin. It was a circle waiting to be closed.

Ken Miles in Goodyear suit preparing in race car

A chance move to America set Miles up to chase his racing dream. He started out modifying MGs, and then moved on to bigger things

But long-distance corporate management doesn’t work in racing, as a dismal 1964 proved with seven DNFs, and deciding that the British end was not performing Ford split its efforts, handing two cars to Shelby American in Los Angeles while letting FAV go its own way. For Miles this was perfect – an experimental car he could steer to success, but he wanted to steer it in both senses, and his cowboy-hatted boss gave in. After two months’ frenzied development inserting a brawnier 427 motor and a ZF gearbox, Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby crossed the 1965 Daytona 200 finish line to score the car’s first triumph. It looked as though Shelby had worked his magic, and if it was that Limey who’d done the donkey work, who cared? Charlie is clear about this: “Ken deserved more credit for Ford’s success than anyone. He was brilliant.” He adds. “Shelby used to come in and chat but he never bugged us.”

“Ken deserved more credit for Ford’s success than anyone.”

You might think two alpha males were set for trouble, but Shelby and Miles in fact had a good rapport. “We got along just fine,’ said Shelby in Evans’ book. “He was the heart and soul of our testing program. He took a pile of s**t, the Daytona Coupé (and I hope you print that) and made it work. Every day Ken was out there testing, or he was in the shop cutting metal and bending things around. He made a racehorse out of a mule.”

Ken’s sensitivities as a test driver – he drove with fingertips and memorised behaviour like a human data-logger – along with the skills of legendary fabricator Phil Remington – had turned a corner for the faltering GT40 project, but it was a false dawn. Apart from second at Sebring (Miles and Bruce McLaren), the rest of 1965 was embarrassing, culminating with six cars failing at Le Mans – Shelby’s 7-litre pair plus the smaller-engined quartet Wyer and FAV were determined to make work. ‘Total Performance’ had turned to ‘Total Embarrassment’. Miles had done better in 1955 when he came 12th in a works MGA.

Yet Shelby was set on hewing an American winner out of this fractured Anglo-American enterprise, and so was Miles. “He was determined to make it a winning team,” says Agapiou. “He wanted that car to work. He was committed to Shelby 100 per cent”.

Ken Miles with trophy and checkered flag after race win

The spoils of victory in a 1959 USAC race at Pomona. Miles got a celebratory kiss from actress Jayne Mansfield. Otto Zipper, the car’s owner, sits in the passenger seat

As well as testing, Ken was also developing the GT350 Mustang and racing the Cobras. It was another of his strengths – sheer toughness. Stringy as he looked, and by now in his 40s, he exercised and ran every day, and didn’t smoke or drink much. Fellow driver John Morton recalled him driving a Cobra in a very hot 100-mile race at Watkins Glen, then doing another 180-miler in it without any signs of strain. His son Peter Miles, later an off-road racer and now in charge of Chip Connor’s magnificent car collection, remembers those times. “He was away a lot, but he took me to Le Mans in 1965, and we went on the road in one of the GT40s to test at Willow Springs. And he let me drive a pre-production street car Cobra on the track – I was about 15. He was interested in science fiction and psychology and extremely focused – he would walk down the grid and stare out each driver to intimidate them before the start. He was really competitive.”

Yet rivals knew him as that proverbial tough but fair opponent who’d leave you space plus one inch, and not a complainer: he just shrugged his shoulders when once disqualified for grabbing a cup of water during an SCCA race while way ahead – constituting an illegal pit stop…

After two turbulent years, 1966 would finally justify the millions of Ford dollars, and Ken Miles was right in the centre. Arriving at Daytona with three 7-litre MkIIs, flanks bulging with air scoops, the team had talent to spare: Miles/Ruby, Dan Gurney/Jerry Grant and Bruce McLaren/Chris Amon. Yet it was Miles who set pole, and 24 hours later, Miles who headed a Ford 1-2-3. Sebring, next round of the World Championship, added another Ford triple with Miles ahead, this time against works Ferraris. The MkII was finally fit for Le Mans.

Ford GT40 Essex Wire car number 92 racing

Having won with smaller-capacity cars, Miles found himself as a key part of Shelby and Ford’s GT40 programme

No-one had ever seen an operation like it: eight cars in three teams, a dozen spare engines, 21 tons of spares – and Henry Ford II himself languidly flagging off the race. There was no option – Ford was going to win and with the works Ferraris falling out in the latter stages it put three MkIIs ahead.

Miles, though, could not stop racing his team, first Gurney/Jerry Grant until a gasket went, then Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren. Then Ford decided that three abreast would make a perfect PR coup and issued those controversial ‘close up’ orders.

“We began to see ’slow down’ signals,” Amon told me in 2006, “but Ken kept going and Bruce was pretty pissed off about that.”

In the last minutes Miles did back off, letting McLaren close up, with a Holman Moody MkII following, but it was McLaren who crossed the line feet ahead.

Drivers with flowers and champagne on racing podium

“There was no way Bruce was going to finish second”, said Amon. “He said Ken backed off; well, maybe – or maybe it was that Bruce put on a little spurt…” Hulme too later said the New Zealander had put on a final sprint to the line.

Yet everyone assumed it was Miles and Hulme’s win. “We tried to push the car into the winner’s enclosure,” says Agapiou, “but they waved us away. Ken shook his head and walked away, but he came back wearing his big duffel coat, congratulated the winners, and posed for the photos. But he was very upset. He was gipped out of it.”

Victory would have given Ken Miles a unique triple – Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans. Thankfully there was the new composite Ford J-car to develop to keep him occupied. Two months later it killed him.

“It was the last lap of the day, and I just saw a ball of fire. They kept me away, but I could see him…”

There’s no definitive explanation of what happened that August test day at Riverside; Peter Miles says two black lines suggest the rears locked. But Charlie Agapiou reckons a last-minute mod to the seat belts was crucial: “Ken was a skinny guy. We had to shorten the belt mount, but while we welded it, on the J-car they riveted it and when he hit the rivets snapped. He slid under the bulkhead and his helmet got caught.”

Peter Miles was there. “It was the last lap, and he was pushing hard. Suddenly it went quiet and I saw a ball of fire. They kept me away but I could see. It’s a bit traumatic seeing your father lying dead in the dirt.”

Miles died from massive head and internal injuries. The following Saturday the funeral chapel overflowed with mourners. Shortly after, says Peter, his mother disposed of all Ken’s trophies. “I’m still trying to collect some back…”

Ford-gt40-union-jack-le-mans

Miles was an often uncredited driving force behind the success of the Ford GT40, bringing British refinement to American muscle

Charlie Agapiou was a consultant on the film. “Matt Damon was into the Shelby thing, but Christian Bale wanted to know everything – how did Ken walk, talk, his traits. He did a good job; he does seem like Ken. They weren’t allowed to do pitstops the right way – too dangerous. But they made a bloody palaver of Ken’s door! [Miles had to stop for a loose door] It took about 20sec, but they have three guys hammering at it.”

Peter Miles: “I gave Christian everything I had on Dad including voice recordings. He hired a linguist to try to pin Dad’s accent.”

However simplified the screen version, it doesn’t change Ken Miles’ legacy. Prickly, but talented, with the ability to find the limits that wring victory from a reluctant car. “The best test driver I ever knew,” said Shelby.

“He put Shelby American on the map,” says Agapiou. “They were lucky to have him. I still miss him.”

Says Peter Miles of the father he lost trying to find that next tenth, “He was an extreme Type A-plus personality”. The sort of guy who makes a good movie hero.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

Chris Amon & Bruce McLaren

Just lucky, or was it all planned? Amon and McLaren were declared winners after a lengthy debate amongst the stewards, who deemed their car began the race 60 feet further back, so therefore covered the greater distance once Ford decreed its dead heat finish. However, there are multiple accounts suggesting McLaren deliberately put on a sprint to the finish regardless. At 22, Amon became the youngest-ever Le Mans winner at the time.

Ken Miles & Denny Hulme

One word comes to mind: Robbed. Ken Miles should have become the first driver to win the triple crown of Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans, but didn’t due to what Carroll Shelby later called “a made up rule” from the race organisers. Ford’s own PR fluff at the time read: “A decision was made in the Ford pits to have the cars finish side-by-side in what hopefully would be considered a dead heat. All three cars went over the finish in formation, but any chance for a dead heat disappeared when officials discovered a rule that in case of a tie, the car that had started further down the grid had travelled the farther distance.”

Race car driver in Goodyear jacket holding gloves, crowd and racing sign in background, black and white photo.

Dan Gurney

Fastest in practice, started from pole by a clear second and was arguably the fastest of all the Ford drivers on the day, if not ever. However this would not be his year as a radiator failure in the 18th hour took his MkII out of the running. He’d be back a year later though, and this time he and fellow American A.J. Foyt powered to Ford’s second victory.

Smiling driver in racing suit beside man in sweater, candid black and white photo with crowd behind.

Richard Attwood & Mike Parkes

This pair of quick Brits would both suffer misfortune. Attwood’s Ferrari 365 P2 was halted by a water pump failure in the eighth hour, while Parkes fought for the lead before his 330 P3 was caught in an accident in hour nine. ‘Dickie’ Attwood’s time would come though when he famously won the race in a Porsche 917 in 1970.

Driver in vintage racing helmet and suit with goggles around neck, blurred pit area background, black and white photo.

Lorenzo Bandini

He and Jean Guichet held the ‘honour’ of being top Ferrari come Sunday morning in this race, although it was rather soured by the fact their 330 P3 was way back in 12th. It wouldn’t go much further either, retiring with engine issues seven hours before the finish. Bandini would be killed a year later following burns from a horrific accident during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Four men gathered around table with papers and bottle, engaged in discussion, black and white photo.

Phil Hill & Jo Bonnier

Ford may have been the prime American interest, but the first appearance of Chaparral wasn’t far behind. The US firm’s new 2D had impressed at Daytona and Sebring and won a 22km race at the Nürburgring, but only managed eight hours here before the electrics packed up. Shame as it had run as high as fifth. Hill qualified the following 2F second overall in 1967 before gearbox failure took him out of the lead fight.

Four men seated in folding chairs near cars, tires, and BP trailer, casual motorsport setting, black and white photo.

Jochen Rindt, Richie Ginther & Jerry Grant

Another unlucky trio, with Ginther perhaps getting the worst deal. He and Pedro Rodríguez represented Ferrari’s biggest threat in their NART 330 P3 Spyder and led during the night before gearbox failure. Rindt was limited to a privateer GT40 entry alongside Innes Ireland, but his engine lasted just three hours. Grant partnered Gurney in the #3 ShelbyFord that lost cooling after 18 hours.

Driver Mark Donahue in racing suit with name embroidered, hands on hips, spectators in background, black and white photo.

Mark Donohue

Mark Donohue was to the great Roger Penske what Ken Miles was to Carroll Shelby. A supremely talented all-rounder called into the Ford fold to share a Holman & Moody with Paul Hawkins. Repeated early stops to fix a halfshaft were problematic, as was the rear clamshell blowing off on the Mulsanne. Donohue went back on foot to collect it, before a differential problem proved terminal.

Two drivers in racing suits celebrating with wine glasses and bouquet of flowers, black and white photo.

Colin Davis & Jo Siffert

The signs of future Le Mans domination perhaps began here. Porsche’s new 906 proved unbeatable in the 2.0 Litre category with Davis and Siffert coming home fourth overall to take the glory and lead a Stuttgart train as works Porsches finished 4th-8th. A few years later, the 917 arrived, and the rest is history. Briton Davis would retire from racing shortly after and emigrate to Cape Town, while Siffert would prove himself a star before his light was extinguished in an accident during a non-championship F1 race at Brands Hatch in 1971.

Three men in casual motorsport setting, one pointing at Goodyear patch on racing suit, black and white photo.

Masten Gregory & John Surtees

Masten Gregory and Bob Bondurant’s NART Ferrari 365 P2 didn’t get very far after transmission failure in hour nine. But it certainly did more mileage than Surtees, who didn’t even make the start. After qualifying seventh a blazing row with Ferrari team manager Eugenio Dragoni over who should start the car resulted in Surtees leaving the circuit for a rant at Enzo in his Maranello office instead.

Driver in racing suit with short curly hair looking downward, outdoor motorsport setting, black and white photo.

Piers Courage

Another distinguished debut. A year before becoming Britain’s new F1 star, Courage shared a Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 275 GTB with Roy Pike and salvaged a silver lining for Maranello by finishing eighth, top Ferrari, and taking the 5-litre GT class win. He would race Le Mans three more times before his death in 1970.

Driver in racing suit with sponsor patches reading letter beside helmet and bag, black and white photo.

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Graham Hill

Had been due to share his Alan Mann GT40 MkII with Dick Thompson before Thompson was caught in a practice tangle and then accused of leaving the scene of an accident in his attempts to get back to the pits. Officials initially tried to disqualify the whole team, but settled on just Thompson after threats from Leo Beebe to withdraw the entire Ford armada. Cue Australian Brian Muir as Hill’s last-minute sidekick, who did two laps on raceday morning to qualifying for his first-ever Le Mans. It wouldn’t last long though after suspension failure.

Three men at motorsport event, one in suit, one in cowboy hat, one in racing suit, Ford signage behind, black and white photo.

Mario Andretti & Lucien Bianchi

This wasn’t a great race for Holman & Moody, which had already upset the apple cart after being asked by Ford to race against Shelby anyway. With the #4 lasting just five hours after a litany of issues, Bianchi and Andretti’s #6 blew its head gasket just three hours later. At least the team’s third car shared by Ronnie Bucknum/Dick Hutcherson finished third.

Man in suit and patterned tie seated indoors, gesturing with hands, black and white photo.

Paddy Hopkirk

The legend of the Mini Monte Carlo success story wasn’t a stranger at Le Mans either, and this was the final of his six Le Mans appearances. Hopkirk was also the last man to race a (proper, production) MG at Le Mans in 1965, but joined Austin-Healey for this final outing. He made it 21 hours before head gasket failure.

Driver in Dunlop racing suit beside man in dark shirt, Matra-BRM sign above, black and white photo.

Jean-Pierre Jaussaud & Henri Pescarolo

A trio of landmarks here as Matra made its Le Mans debut and brought with it two fresh drivers who would become French greats. Their BRM-powered MS60 may have retired, but Jaussaud would go on to win Le Mans twice (with Alpine–Renault in 1978 and Rondeau’s famous win in 1980). Pescarolo became one of the greatest drivers in the history of the race, winning four times (1972-74, 1984) and amassing a record 33 starts before then entering his own team.

Close-up of driver in vintage racing helmet with stripe design, plain blurred background, black and white photo.

Jacky Ickx

This year was a big one for debuts. This Belgian superstar’s first appearance at La Sarthe may have ended when the engine in his MkI GT40 lunched itself, but it didn’t put him off. Ickx went on to rack up six wins (1969, 1975-77, 1981-82), which stood as a Le Mans record before a certain Mr Kristensen came to the fore. One of the all-time great drivers. In anything.

Side profile of man in quilted jacket and scarf, outdoors with blurred background, black and white photo.

Pedro Rodríguez

Was never able to really show his genius behind the wheel here due to an overly fragile Ferrari gearbox. He’d be a grand prix winner by the end of 1967 though and then came that wet-weather masterclass aboard a Porsche 917 in the 1970 BOAC 1000km at Brands Hatch. Stunning.

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Le Mans ’66: Ken Miles, Ford’s orders, and the lost triple crown

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.

Ford GT40 roadster racing at speed during 1966 Le Mans test session

Following success at Daytona, Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby doubled up during round two at Sebring, taking this GT40 X-1 Roadster to the 12H victory

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.

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The new Ford J-car was the major interest, being of an entirely new construction and shape, the body/chassis monocoque unit being built from a ’sandwich’ material consisting of two sheets of aluminium, each 0.014in thick, spaced an inch apart and filled with an aluminium honeycomb, the whole lot bonded into a very light, yet very strong material. Suspension pick-up points and such like are in steel or aluminium and are bonded to the main structure with aircraft adhesives. The dry-sump 7-litre push-rod OHV engine is the usual V8 layout, with one 4-choke Holley carburetter, but unlike the 4.7-litre and previous 7-litre engines the exhausts are collected in bunches of four on each side of the engine and run into their own tail pipes. Previously all the GT cars had ‘Climax pattern’ cross-over systems. A Ford 2-speed and torque-converter transmission was used in this car, being of the fully hydraulic type, the driver’s lever merely operating a valve that permitted the hydraulic mechanism to select “Drive,” “Low” or “High.” Suspension followed normal GT40 MkII practice, being fully independent and sprung on coil springs with double wishbones at the front and transverse link, wishbone and double radius arms at the rear. This car was fully instrumented to measure brake temperatures, suspension movements, throttle openings and rpm, the whole lot being collected on a recorder on the passenger seat. The 7-litre engine was quoted as giving 475bhp at 6200rpm, which didn’t appear to be straining the unit. The bodywork was extremely functional and intriguing, the roof line running straight back to the tail, reminiscent of the very first car of this conception that Eric Broadley built called a Lola-Ford V8. The Ford J-car is the sort of shape that Maserati and other people in Modena have been trying to achieve for many years and have not quite succeeded. The Ford engineers have definitely succeeded with this one, and anyone who thinks these big Fords are crude lumps of ironmongery should study the J-car closely; it is anything but crude and is a first-class technical exercise. Because of the unusual roof-line there is a rear-view mirror mounted on the roof and the driver looks into it through a slot in the roof, this giving him an unobstructed view to the rear.

The other two Shelby-American cars were 7-litre MkII versions of the GT40 as raced at Daytona and Sebring, using Ford’s own 4-speed gearbox, but one of these was completely destroyed when Walt Hansgen crashed in the escape road just beyond the pits. He suffered multiple injuries, from which he later died. There were a selection of drivers available for Ford’s test programme, including McLaren, Amon, Miles and Lucien Bianchi.

“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.

Walt Hansgen crash scene during 1966 Le Mans test as marshals and spectators gather

The flashpoint of the test. Rescue crews rush to the crashed Ford of Walt Hansgen. He would suffer injuries that would prove fatal a few days later

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.

Ford GT40 in pit lane surrounded by team members and media during 1966 Le Mans test

Miles and Hulme’s car in the pits, before its red accents were added

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.

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