Driving a GT40

Ultimate Ford GT40 author Mark Cole recalls his one-and-only Ford GT40 drive, more than 50 years ago

During my time as sports editor of Hot Car magazine in the 1970s I had the chance to drive some pretty interesting cars – among them the first BMW 2002 Turbo in the UK, Jon Pertwee’s Whomobile (really!), a full-race Ford Fairlane, a Shelby Cobra, Roger Williamson’s F3 March and Malcolm Guthrie’s F2 Brabham. But the abiding memory to this day is of laps I did around the Silverstone GP circuit in the autumn of 1973 in a race Ford GT40. It made the front cover of the January 1974 issue.

The car – P/1025 – was owned and raced by Henley’s Chris Long, whom I had met during that season’s Tricentrol Sports GT Championship, in which I was racing my own Group 6 Sturdgess-Ford. We also competed against each other in the Silverstone Six Hours Relay. When I got the call from Chris asking if the magazine would like to track test the GT40, there was only one answer!

The car was originally sent by FAV to Shelby in late 1965 for finishing, but the work was never done. It was returned to the UK, given a 289 V8, and became one of four cars used by Shell Oils for a US advertising campaign promoting a performance additive (it was the ‘Without’ car).

Sold privately afterwards, it was bought by Long from Mike Spence Ltd in 1969. A 302 ‘Boss’ engine was put in, its Super Shell yellow livery was changed to dark green, and it was fitted with Halibrand magnesium wheels. Long road-registered it as XBH 763F, and raced on British circuits in the Cussons Championship and other series until 1976. The five-speed ZF transmission was geared for a 170mph top speed, more than sufficient for UK tracks.

It was midway through that campaign that I tested 1025 at Silverstone. Late autumn may not have been the ideal time to get to know a Le Mans car around Britain’s then-fastest circuit, and Chris warned me to get heat into both tyres and brakes. In my report I described the interior as ‘made for the driver, an ergonomic paradise, everything placed where it should be, the most comfortable seat I have ever lowered myself into, and a general sense of purpose with comfort.

‘Unlike a Gulf Porsche 917 in which I had sat, suffering near-claustrophobia even with the door open, the Ford GT40 cockpit is spacious, wide and remarkably airy, enhanced by the air-conditioned seats with cool air blowing through the eye-holes.’

Driving the car was something of a shock: ‘Imagined smoothness and light-handling were soon dispelled, with heavy steering and tremendous understeer until the fat race tyres were good and hot, very reluctant brakes, and a tendency to leap all over the track every time the front wheels met a bump scared the wits out of me…

‘The (350 bhp) power showed through all this, however, and the enormous crash from behind as I floored the throttle reminded that a car like this could have indeed won Le Mans four times. The GT40 doesn’t handle that well, and the brakes require huge effort, and many drivers who know will readily tell you so once they find you’ve joined their elite. But for a race car designed 10 years ago – improved of course, over the years – it was good for the standards then.’

At Silverstone, our road test boffins took the opportunity to attach a fifth wheel – a calibrated spoked wheel which clipped onto the rear of cars and gave accurate speed readings – to get performance figures. Ronnie Spain noted this in Volume 1 of Ultimate Ford GT40.

Along with a Shelby Cobra, it’s the most powerful, most brutal car I’ve driven. Ian Wearing, our road tester, agreed after sitting alongside in the passenger seat for our speed runs. He said at the time: ‘have you ever tried stopping watches when you’ve lost control of your hands and eyeballs?’

The 1973 performance figures may not over-impress by 2025 standards, but back then they were the quickest Hot Car had ever recorded in hundreds of road and track tests:

0-50 mph – 3.4 secs

0-70 mph – 6.3 secs

0-90 mph – 10.1 secs

0-110 mph – 14.5 secs

It was not for another 45 years that I had the chance to climb into another GT40, and that was the 1966 Le Mans third-placed P/1016 in Claude Nahum’s Geneva workshops, while I was writing its biography for Porter Press’s Exceptional Cars series. As I sat in it, enveloped and protected, the emotions of that 1973 Silverstone test came back, and I remembered that I too was once a GT40 driver.

The icing on the cake came at a recent Goodwood Revival when I espied P/1025, now owned by Shaun Lynn, repainted pale blue with a red stripe, and carrying the registration TES 1E. She is now a stately 60-year-old, and has distinguished herself with wins at the Le Mans Classic and Goodwood, so I didn’t hesitate to get the photo of her with me and that 1973 cover.

And now it’s back to Volume 3 of Ultimate Ford GT40…

Above article written by Mark Cole