The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

chain broke on the last lap (228) and he coasted to a stop in first place within sight of the finish line. Ken Miles swept past and took the victory. Miles and Ruby had now taken back- to-back wins at Daytona and Sebring; fate had smiled on Ken Miles at Se- bring, but it was not to happen again. Preparation had smiled on Ford; GT40s had finished 1-2-3 at the first two big races of the year. LeMans was up next. Ford sent eight GT40s to the Le- Mans trials in April 1966. Most inter- esting of those cars was J-1, the prototype MK IV GT40 that had been envisaged by Roy Lunn just after the 1965 Le Mans race. This was a totally new GT40, designed to be lightweight and with a more central cockpit which allowed a smaller windshield and less drag. The chassis was constructed by Brunswick Aircraft Corporation of 0.016” aluminum sandwiching a bonded honeycomb “filler.” Before the roof structure was added the chassis weighed just 85 lbs. For comparison a Cobra skin utilizes 0.063” aluminum on the tops of the front and rear fend- ers, and 0.050” on all other skin pan- els. A Cobra skin weighs about 40 lbs. and a 289 chassis weighs a bit more than 200 lbs. When finished J-1 weighed 2,660 lbs. with fuel and driver, about 300 lbs. lighter than a MK II. The LeMans trials are different in that they are test days only, where car owners can compare and contrast car components, set-ups and drivers. There are no results other than lap times which can be compared between cars, drivers and other teams. Bruce McLaren had done most of the early break-in work for J-1 in March 1966, so he and Chris Amon were to test J-1 for the LeMans trials. Ken Miles and Lucien Bianchi (along with McLaren and Amon) were to run P/1012, the car that had finished 2nd OA at Daytona. Walt Hansgen was detailed to P/1011 which had finished 5th OA at Day- tona. Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Paul Hawkins were in a lightweight MK I for Alan Mann Racing as were John Whitmore and Frank Gardner who were in the other lightweight MK I for Alan Mann Racing. Four other MK Is were at the trials from Scuderia Filipinetti, Essex Wire and Ford of France. Fate did not smile on Ford in April 1966. First, Ferrari chose to test their cars at Monza, removing the opportu- nity for Ford to compare times with their main rival. One of the goals for Ford at the trials was to test wet-con- dition driving on the new, wider tires used on the 1966 cars. The weather co- operated on day one; Walt Hansgen was first out in P/1011 and after a few laps it began to drizzle so he returned to the pits for rain tires. He was told to back off in the wet but after three more blistering laps he was brought in and told by Carroll Smith to further back off. He was turning laps in the 3:40s and by comparison, Ken Miles who had followed him out in P/1012, was turning laps north of 4 minutes. A few laps later Hansgen lost control, hit a retaining wall and then a dirt barrier before coming to a stop upside down in the badly crushed car. He was cut out of the wreck and died five days later in the hospital. Meanwhile Miles had backed his car into a sand barrier and McLaren had managed only 12 laps in J-1. By the end of the test, Stewart and Graham Hill felt the MK II was a better car than the Alan Mann lightweights and AMR was sub- sequently directed to run MK IIs. Ford determined the J-car was not ready for prime time. Ten weeks later fourteen GT40s were entered at LeMans; eight MK IIs and six MK Is. Shelby American was handed three of the MK IIs, Holman- Moody another three and two more were under the care of Alan Mann. The six MK Is were entered by a com- bination of proxies and privateers in- The SHELBY AMERICAN Gurney’s heartbreaker. He was leading the race until the timing chain broke a few hundred feet from the finish line. Within sight of the checkered flag, he pushed the dead car to the line as the crowd cheered him on while the second place car, driven by Ken Miles, passed him to win the race. Unbeknownst to Gurney, pushing a non- running car on the track disqualified him. Had he sat in the car until the end of the race he would have been credited with a second place finish. Ford’s J-Car was so-named because it was built to conform to the FIA’s Appendix J rules. At LeMans it was dubbed “the Breadvan” because the roofline was almost horizontal, giving the appearance of a delivery truck. Fall 2021 64