The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

hanges were made after the debacle at LeMans in 1965. Leo Beebe came back from the great race to boldly report to Ford management that his team had learned enough in failure in 1965 to garner success in 1966, if the powers in Dearborn chose to move for- ward. After some weeks of considera- tion, approval was given but an overarching change was made. The formation of an oversight committee made up of all the pertinent depart- ment heads at Ford would meet every two weeks to discuss and coordinate the LeMans Project. Meanwhile work progressed at Ford Advanced Vehicles in England to pro- duce the 50 cars needed to ensure FIA homologation. As fall progressed in 1965, several thousand miles was run up in testing GT 106 and GT 107 by Ken Miles and Phil Hill on this side of the Atlantic, complimented by GT 105 and P/1006 being put through their paces by Innes Ireland, Richard Attwood, Umberto Maglioli and Gian- carlo Baghetti in Italy. As a result of the testing the definitive nose for the GT 40 was taking shape and testing turned to details like brake pad com- pounds and transmission and suspen- sion tuning. GT 107 was sacrificed to become the dyno test mule for the Le- Mans Project; it was cut in half and at- tached to a dyno where various 427 engines were used-up in the effort to get 48 hours of running time under race conditions (the technicians used shifting, rpm and braking data gath- ered in 1965 from laps run at LeMans by Ken Miles). Reports indicate they never had an engine survive to 48 hours, but when they got over 40 hours it was deemed good enough for a margin of error in a 24-hour race. By January 1966 there were eight MK II chassis available to the LeMans Proj- ect, six of which had been completed. There was one last revisit to the nose configuration, dubbed long vs. short, with Miles taking the former to 204 mph at Kingman, AZ., an improve- ment of about 8 mph over the short nose version. The Daytona Continental had been upgraded to a full 24-hour event for 1966 after two years as a 2000KM event. The Ford oversight committee instituted a big change for the 1966 season; despite zero experience in sport car racing, Holman & Moody was brought into the GT 40 program to spread the work load with Shelby American and to create what we now call a “best practices” scenario to max- imize the chances for success. By Jan- uary 1966 four pairs of MK II chassis had been delivered to Shelby Ameri- can which was charged with finishing and prepping all the cars for competi- tion: P/1011-12, P/1015-16, P/1031-32 and P/1046-47. Of the eight cars, five were delivered to Daytona for the race; The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 61 The 1966 crop of Ford’s GT40 drivers were a diverse group. They were some of the most experienced sports car drivers then working, joined by some with less experience but offering great promise. The end result was Ford’s fabled 1-2-3 Finish at LeMans . – Brooks Laudin C Daytona – #96 – P1011, Bruce McLaren/Chris Amon Daytona – #97 – P1012, Dan Gurney/Jerry Grant