The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

for SAI, P/1011 for McLaren/Amon, P/1012 for Gurney/Grant and P/1015 for Miles/Ruby and for H-M, P/1016 for Ginther/Bucknum and P/1031 for Hansgen/Donohue. Aside from these five cars, three MK I cars were en- tered; two by Essex Wire (P/1010 & 1026) and last year’s winner GT 103, now entered privately by William Wonder. Miles put his car on the pole, with Hansgen starting 3rd. Miles took the lead on lap 2 and he and Ruby brought P/1015 home 24 hours later 1st OA, followed by Gurney and Grant in P/1012 and Hansgen and Donohue in P/1031. Ford had pulled off a 1-2-3- 5 finish to start the season. Just two weeks later, the winning car had been dismantled at Shelby American, rebuilt with a dry sump en- gine and taken to Riverside for com- parison tests of manual vs. automatic transmissions, component and suspen- sion testing. Over the course of three test days some 2,000 miles were run at the track by Ken Miles. March 26, 1966 saw 13 GT40s start the Sebring 12 Hours. There were four MK IIs in the mix, two each for Shelby American and Holman-Moody, plus nine MK Is entered by Ford proxies and privateers. SAI had entered GT 110 for Miles and Ruby, a roadster which had been developed for a 427 cu. in. engine by Bruce McLaren, but which had subsequently been reverted to SAI and now sported an automatic transmission. The other SAI entry was P/1031 for Gurney and Grant. H-M en- tered P/1032 for Hansgen and Dono- hue and P/1016 under Foyt and Bucknum. We’ll never know if it was by design, but Miles and Ruby man- aged to break the automatic transmis- sion in their car in practice and a T44 was installed for the race. Gurney put his car on the pole, followed by a Fer- rari gridded 2nd, then a lightweight The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 62 Daytona – #98 – P1015, Ken Miles/Lloyd Ruby Daytona – #87 – P1016, Richie Ginther/Ronnie Bucknum Daytona – #95 – P1031, Walt Hansgen/Mark Donohue Sebring – #1 – GT110, Ken Miles/Lloyd Ruby Sebring – #2 – P1031, Dan Gurney/Jerry Grant