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As befits the Greatest Show on
Earth, the Pebble Beach Concours
d’Elegance has several rings. For any
other circus, one would be sufficient.
But this, sir, is Pebble Beach. In the
center ring were seventeen fabulous
GT40s, there to celebrate the 50th An-
niversary of winning the prestigious
24 Hours of LeMans. Almost all of
them had significant race victories. In
the other rings, each quite a bit
smaller, were Two-Man Indianapolis
Race Cars 1930-1937, Bizzarinis, and
cars there to celebrate Lamborghini’s
50th Anniversary. And, of course, there
were the other two hundred-odd creme
of the creme of the classic car world.
Was the line of sparkling GT40
race-winners, parked diagonally side
by side, worth a $375 ticket? When you
consider that you would probably
never get to see all of these cars at the
same time at the same place again in
your lifetime, you could justify it.
I have seen GT40s at Pebble more
than once since I first attended in
1990, but what I saw this year when I
stepped on the field and joined the
crowd at the water’s edge exceeded
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 24
Seventeen of the most historical GT40s of all time were summoned to Pebble Beach to celebrate
the 50th Anniversary of Ford’s 1966 LeMans victory. In doing so, they rendered
every other classic and exotic car on the show field the equivalent of elevator music.
– Harvey Sherman
GT/101. Claude and Sylvie Nahum, Fournex, Switzerland
. This car is an exact recre-
ation of the first-ever Ford GT. The original car was displayed at the New York Auto
Show in 1964 and then run at the LeMans trials driven by Jo Schlesser where it was
crashed and scrapped. This car was built from original drawings and photos and the
engine, one of only nine 255 cubic-inch push rod “Indy” engines (currently 3 known to
exist), was built from scratch with the assistance of Ford Heritage, race engineer Mose
Nowland and Cobra Automotive.
GT/103. Greg Miller, Sandy, Utah.
The earliest known GT40 chassis to exist. Sent to
Shelby American and prepared for the 1965 season. Driven by Ken Miles and Lloyd
Ruby at Daytona, this was the first GT40 to win a race. It also finished 2nd at Sebring
and 3rd. at Monza. Driven by Phil Hill at Nurbürgring fitted with a 325 cubic-inch
DOHC engine. Retired by the factory and sold; continued to be raced until 1970.