The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

cluding Ford of France and Essex Wire. The whole LeMans operation had reported to Carroll Shelby in 1965; this year Ford executives led by Leo Beebe were on the scene and in overall charge. One car, MK I P/1029, was destroyed in practice and did not start. Eleven of the thirteen remaining GT40s were gridded in the top seven- teen slots, including 1st through 4th positions. There was some major scrambling in the two weeks before the race to fill out the driver roster. The teams had lost Walt Hansgen in April, so Mark Donohue needed a co-driver. The day after the Indianapolis 500 Lloyd Ruby was injured when he crashed his pri- vate plane on takeoff on his way to Milwaukee for the next IndyCar race. He was in the hospital and unavail- able to Ford for LeMans, leaving Ken Miles looking for a partner. At the Mil- waukee race A.J. Foyt was involved in a methanol fire and burned. He was out of LeMans as well, leaving Ronnie Bucknum needing a co-driver. And just six days before LeMans, Jackie Stew- art was injured in a wreck at the Bel- gian Grand Prix leaving his intended partner, Graham Hill, needing a co- driver in XGT-2, a MK II under the Alan Mann Racing banner. Bob Gross- man was the only reserve driver for Ford at LeMans in 1966. P/1046 MK II: Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon drivers. The car was com- pleted at SAI as a MK II and finished in black with silver stripes in defer- ence to the national colors of its all- Kiwi crew. This was Bruce McLaren’s third consecutive appearance for Ford in a GT40 at LeMans. McLaren grid- ded the car 4th with a qualifying time of 3:32.6 and spent much of the race marking time in the top five positions before moving up to third in the early morning due to the demise of two Fer- raris which had been running in the top five. McLaren and Amon then had their car in the lead until about two hours to go when Miles and Hulme went ahead. A publicity stunt gone bad allowed McLaren to catch up with Miles and win the race on a technical- ity regarding the starting grid posi- tions (Miles had gridded his car 2nd, some 24-feet ahead of McLaren). McLaren and Amon had teamed to- gether in the fall of 1965 on the devel- opment of GT110, the X-1 lightweight 427 car that Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby would take to victory at Sebring in March 1966. The Kiwis finished 5th OA at that Daytona race in February 1966 and 1st OA at LeMans in June 1966. They never again teamed up in a race. (August 30, 1937 – June 2, 1970) was a New Zealand-born race car designer, driver, engineer, and inventor. After achieving success in a local NZ series while still a teenager, McLaren first became notable in Europe driving for the Cooper team in 1958. He was the youngest Grand Prix race winner up to 1959, aged 22 years 104 days. He founded his own eponymous McLaren team in 1963, which contin- ues today as one of the most successful in Formula One championship history, winning a total of 8 World Construc- tors' Championships and 12 World Drivers' Championships. As a driver, McLaren made 100 career F1 starts producing four wins among 27 podium appearances. He made eight starts at LeMans with one win. The McLaren team has also won three Indianapolis 500 races, as well as the 24 Hours of LeMans and the 12 Hours of Sebring. His cars dominated Can-Am sports car racing with 56 wins between 1967 and 1972 with five constructors’ cham- pionships, plus Bruce himself winning the driver’s championship in 1967 and 1969. McLaren was also highly active in the Antipodean Tasman Series, win- ning the championship in 1964. He fa- mously won the 1966 24 Hours of LeMans in a Ford GT40 and assumed much of the development responsibil- ity for the GT40 after Ken Miles was killed two months after LeMans. McLaren was an owner-driver who was responsible for much of the design of his cars. He was killed testing one of his Can-Am cars in 1970 at the Goodwood Circuit, aged 32. (July 20, 1943 – August 3, 2016) The scion of wealthy New Zealand farm- ers, Amon was taught to drive at six years-old by a hand on the family sheep ranch. He started racing an Austin A40 Special after leaving sec- ondary school. By 19 he was in the Cooper-Climax T51 that Bruce McLaren had used to win his first Grand Prix in 1959 (the US Grand Prix, then at Sebring). Good tests, if not great results, followed and by 1963 Amon found himself on the F1 circuit where he accumulated 11 podium fin- ishes in 96 starts over 13 years. Amon drove for 13 teams in his career (a record). Unfortunately, his F1 reputation was one of “great promise and bad luck.” Ferrari technical director Mauro Forghieri described Amon as, “ by far The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 65 Bruce McLaren Chris Amon P1046.