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he arrival of the 2015 Shelby
American Annual prompted
SAAC member and noted automotive
artist Richard Soules to look through
his filing cabinet to see what he had
on another one of his projects, the No-
vember, 1967 cover cutaway of Ford’s
G7-A dihedral-wing Can-Am car. He
said he was actively following the de-
velopment of the new Ford GT super-
car and the upcoming 50th
anniversary of the LeMans victory in
1966. We’ll let him pick up the story
from here.
In August of 1967 I was commis-
sioned to do cover art for Car and Dri-
ver’s November 1967 issue. In those
days the magazine had to be prepared
two months prior to publication. The
subject was the Ford G7-A Can-Am
race car. At the time the vehicle was in
the process of being built. Ford had
just won the 24 Hours of Lemans with
Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt driving an
all-American designed and built car.
Shortly after, the governing body
of international racing outlawed the
large cubic-inch engines, which meant
the Ford MK IVs were no longer qual-
ified. Ford then decided to adopt the
basic tub and setup of the MK IVs for
the Can-Am race series. These were
open cockpit race cars sometimes uti-
lizing a large wing in the rear which
provided extra downforce on the rear
wheels and thereby increasing the
gripping power of the tires.
Ford also had the novel idea of
splitting the rear wing in the middle
so that not only could the angle of the
angle be adjusted in front to rear but
also from level to an angle with dihe-
dral. The car was tested by Mario An-
dretti, who was also a driver in the se-
ries. The car did not develop as hoped
and was sold to a race team. It was
never raced.
I found my project to produce the
art fascinating. To start with, I had to
go to the shop that was building the
car to shoot photographs and get any
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2016 53
Not every J-Car was a coupe
T
– Richard Soules & Rick Kopec
The evolution of a cutaway illustration.