The historic1967 LeMans winner

 

Deservedly the centerpiece of the Ford Motor Company exhibit  at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show was the 1967 24 Heures du Mans (24 hours of LeMans) winning Ford GT40 Mark IV chassis  number J-5.

 

 

This car represented the ultimate development of the Ford GT40 series which first appeared at LeMans in 1964, as Henry Ford II was driven to beat the Italian Ferrari team. The initial Ford Advanced Vehicles Limited effort with British built chassis originally designed by Lola Cars powered by Ford’s 260 cubic inch V-8 engines managed by John Wyer did not perform well, and for 1965 management of the program moved to Carrol Shelby’s Shelby American Racing Team.

In 1965 Shelby American was still pushing its Cobra Daytona coupe program and after a difficult 1965 LeMans appearance in which both the Mark IIs entered retired with transmission failure, in 1966 the Shelby American GT40 Mark IIs powered by Ford 427 engines dominated at LeMans. 

The 1966 finish was botched as Ford tried to stage the 1-2-3 finish and the team of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon were declared the winners of race over the team of Ken Miles and Denis Hulme.  The next iteration of the GT40 known as the “J-car” (chassis J-2) was destroyed in testing and killed Ken Miles and Ford dropped its development.  GT40 Mark III were cars built for road use.

Six (6) GT40 Mark IV chassis were built at Kar Kraft Inc. in Detroit powered by the mighty 427 Ford V-8 engine with cast iron block and aluminum cylinder heads fed by a pair of Holley four barrel carburetors that developed an estimated 530 horsepower and carried the Mark IV to terminal speeds of 212 miles per hour on the 3-1/2 mile long Mulsanne Straight. Lessons learned from the deaths of Walter Hangsen and Ken Miles meant the Mark IVs were more stoutly built with a steel roll cage.

 

 

 

Four Mark IV chassis were entered for the 1967 LeMans 24 hour race, two cars by Shelby American on Goodyear tires consisted of the driver team of three-time Indianapolis 500-race winner AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney in the red #1 car and the other team of 1966 LeMans winner Bruce McLaren and Mark Donohue in the yellow #2 car.

The other two Ford GT 40 Mark IVs were entered by the Holman Moody team shod with Firestone tires driven by teams of Lucien Bianchi and Mario Andretti in the bronze #3 car and the other by Denis Hulme and Lloyd Ruby in the dark blue #4 car.  The red #1 car chassis J-5 was visually different from the other entries because of the “Gurney Bubble” over the driver’s seat to accommodate Dan Gurney’s 6-foot-3 inch height.

The car #2 of Donohue and McLaren finished fourth while the #3 car assigned to Bianchi and Andretti and the #4 car of Hulme and Ruby were both eliminated in accidents during the 19th hour.   Foyt and Gurney in the #1 car led the race for the last 23 ½ hours and completed 388 laps (3251 miles) at a record breaking average of 135.48 miles per hours and won by four laps over the Ferrari 330 P4 driven by Ludovico Scarfiotti and Michael Parks.

 

The car that crossed the finish line on June 11 1967 was truly “all American”- car built in Detroit powered by an American-built Ford engine riding on American Goodyear tires driven by a pair American drivers.  This car chassis J-5 only ran one race and today the conserved car is part of the collection of the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan.

To learn more about Ford Motor Company’s racing program at LeMans in 1967 and view historic photographs visit https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101482