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Ford GT40 dug up?

Discussion in 'GT40 & Ford GT' started by bitzman, Jun 16, 2007.

  1. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    I saw in an English magazine on the newsstand now a picture of a rusty
    tub of a Ford GT they say is the Bondurant/Whitmore GT40 that was ordered cut up and thrown away. Well, whoever was supposed to do it, they didn't cut it up very much and they sure as hell didn't bury it very deep...Bob and Sir John will be glad to hear that.Can't wait to see it on a racetrack again, though not sure about replicating that puke green color it ran in the Targa Florio before Bondo slid it off the road

    Makes me wonder did anyone ever pinpoint where the ' Ford GT 7-liter GTX (red, mk. II body, targa, Sebring '66 winner with Miles/Ruby) was thrown away? The disovery of the Whitmore/Bondie car makes me hope that's another case of buried-not-too-deep,and not-quite-cut-up...
     
  2. Aluminum

    Aluminum New Member

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    1966 Sebring winner: I can not confirm being "cut up" but, I do know the frame was taken to a housing project and used for fill in material at a California location. The person who did the deed still has some small parts of the racecar.
     
  3. The Commissioner

    The Commissioner Well-Known Member

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  4. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    Re: Ford GT40 dug up? Apparently already being raced

    One of the British magazines has a better picture of the small block
    targa GT40 already racing at Goodwood. Apparently its more than 40 years underground didnt do it that much harm. In the caption in the British magazine they say the body is 9 inches shorter, so I am curious to see it in person. Also curious to see what Bondurant will say when he sees it in person in case it is brought to Monterey.

    The other GT40 targa in Los Angeles is still being finished, having a four cam Indy engine put into it. Even tho the originals had an Indy engine in '64 that was a pushrod Indy engine , this one looks oh-so-much-more-exotic with the four cam and will probably sound pretty good when it's started up.
     
  5. Excaliber

    Excaliber Well-Known Member

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    I understand Carroll did not want to run that Indy engine, he was pressured by Ford to do it. It had one problem after another, including reliability issues. He wanted to win, not screw around with 'what if's' for big brother. The engine was abandoned pretty early on, being little more than a token to please Ford. But your right, it has some 'history' and is 'appropriate'.
     
  6. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    SHELBY magazine has it wrong

    I was surprised that most people assume that the Indy engine is always a four cam when in the beginning it was a pushrod engine. It was the pushrod version that went into the Ford GT in '65. I got this info. from a book called The Racing Fords by Hans Tanner, who wasn't always accurate in his Ferrari books but I suspect his Ford book was totally written by Ford PR as it reads like a 50,000 word Ford PR publicity release. In the SHELBY magazine that's on the newsstands now, the historian who writes about the Ford GT says that it had a 4-cam engine in '64 but there's a guy who didn't do the research before they went to press. Still even being a pushrod engine, it was pretty exciting to me-- being a Ford Falcon Sprint fan at the time (back in '64) that the Indy engine was so closely related to the Falcon Sprint engine (albeit with better parts throughout). Ford's mistake was thinking an engine built for a race of a few hours could go 24 hours.
    I would have liked to see the 4-cam engine in the car back then
    but would Ford have been able to offer such an engine in a street car?
    Not likely, it was way more complicated than what they were already offering so GT40 fans should be happy it was a pushrod small block , of which there are thousands available.
     
  7. philpughe

    philpughe Member

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    which british magazine?
     
  8. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    Might be Classic and Sports Cars or its competitor, which I can't remember
    the title of, maybe Classic Car. Whichever magazine it is, they featured it twice,a small blurb in two separate issues in the last few months, first the car as dug up, kind of dirty looking, and then the car in its pea soup green color as already restored and running at Goodwood. In the second small blurb, they said the car body is 9" shorter than a Ford GT coupe. I wish they had done a full story on it so I could compare it to Dean Jeffries roadster, a sister car that is 100% complete.

    So I guess that makes three Ford GT40 roadsters existant, if you count
    the one from Montana that was at a SAAC meet decades ago.
    Wonder where the fourth small block is?
     
  9. philpughe

    philpughe Member

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    oh right i know the one. it was pottering around Goodwood this year.
     
  10. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    They probably didn't want to push it too hard

    Pottering around probably means not running 10/10ths, i.e. at the limit. I don't know if I'd want to push a car that hard that spent 40 years underground. Just like I'd be wary of a rebuilt warbird that was dug out of the mud. Metal fatigue is my worry.
     
  11. patty.dilabio

    patty.dilabio Well-Known Member

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    Hi to some FORD G.T. fans! The car(s) mentioned here are some of the few that had the indy dohc engine...and it was very expensive to produce.It was the pushrod small block that powered most of these cars,and the indy version of this engine has an additional head bolt for each cylinder-this was to prevent head gasket failure in the high compression applications.The biggest problem and largest failure was the transmission.The cammer has a very good record--did you forget about Jim Clarks Indy win?:) :) And just so you will understand better,its is the combination of light clutch,and bundle of snakes exhaust that give a car the incredible sound.Nothing sounds like it,or could unless equipped with 180 degree headers.
     
  12. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    Jeffries GT40 roadster

    I think he will have bundle of snakes exhausts. He was with several Indy teams, did the graphics. He is not the first one to fit a GT40 with a four cam though. Years ago I met an inventor named Jim Toensing who did it and wrote an article about it in a Petersen magazine. His car was yellow. Whoever bought it probably fitted a pushrod engine and got to keep an engine that has to be worth $50,000!
     
  13. Excaliber

    Excaliber Well-Known Member

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    A very cool application for a GT-40, it will look and sound great!

    As for Jim Clark, he only had to run 500 miles and right to the edge of engine expiration. at that. :)
     
  14. rsimkins

    rsimkins Well-Known Member

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    Re: Jeffries GT40 roadster

    That car was P1027. I believe that Jim has since sold it and yes I think the four cam engine was removed. That engine did seem like a good match to the car, sophisticated chassis with a sophisticated engine. I agree that the expense and questions of reliability over a 24 hour period of racing made it unsuitable as the engine of choice for the Le Mans circuit. It did make for a very interesting story though. A copy of that article can be found in Peterson's Complete Ford Book, 3rd Edition starting on page 136.
     
  15. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    Re: Ford GT40 dug up? Now it's in a magazine again

    This time I have the title of the magazine CLASSIC CAR from the UK
    very small picture of car on left hand page.It's the same pea soup green
    it was when Bondurant smashed it in the Targa Florio. I am anxiously awaiting a 3-4 page story so we can see how it was it was buried for 40 plus years (why not unearthed sooner?) and how complete the restoration was. Still it's good to see such a rare GT40 out and about. I would like to see Sir John and Bob Bondurant reunited with the car, this time maybe Bondie will keep it right side up.
     
  16. patty.dilabio

    patty.dilabio Well-Known Member

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    Just a quick update--if you ever get a chance to visit the one and only Indy
    they have a nice museum with some of the former winning cars and some of the best power plant displays ever,includeing the small block cammer.And if you want to find out more about which cars had this engine,check out the book by Ronnie Spain..nothing else even comes close.:)
     
  17. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    was no small block cammer

    Thanks for the tip. I know Ronnie but I have never been to the museum. Ronnie's come a long way from being a truck driver who idolized the GT40. But I still say, if you mean by Cammer a single or double overhead cam (DOHC)
    then none of the Ford GT40s had that engine when Ford was developing or running the cars. The 1964 GT40 small blocks started out with a pushrod "Indy" engine, that looked more or less like a Cobra 260 small block with Webers. It was on the cover of Car & Driver with its bundle of snakes exhaust glowing cherry red. Late in the season in '64 they began putting in 289 Cobra spec engines and then in '65 started making a 7-liter pushrod version using the 427 side oiler. When Jim Toensing and Dean Jeffries put DOHC engines in their GT40s they were doing what Ford could have done or should have done, but didn't. But I am glad Ford didn't way back when because we would see less GT40s in vintage racing if they had to use the 4-cam engines to be period correct--those engines must cost ten times more than a hi-po 289 or 302.
     
  18. steveshelbymustang

    steveshelbymustang Well-Known Member

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    Is this the car you guys are talking about?
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  19. bitzman

    bitzman Well-Known Member

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    Not that one. I think that might be 103 in the crashed shot.
    But that's a coupe.
    I'm talking roadster, targa roof bar, open top. They made at least four
    open 289 powered targas/roadsters and at least one 7-liter one, which won
    Sebring in '66 , painted would you believe it Ferrari red.
    One of the targa roadsters is in Studio City at Jeffries' shop, another is
    now in England, the puke green one, running vintage races. Then there is a white one that was owned by Tom Cogleton in Montana,haven't seen that one in a long time, was in Montana hidden away for decades. So it could be 75% of the 289 open cars survived.
     
  20. A-Snake

    A-Snake Well-Known Member

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    Hidden away in Montana for decades? :doh: Harley Cluxton sold it to someone in Montana in 1978 and bought it back in 1983 and sold it to Tom Congleton also in '83. Tom was from Kansas not Montana.

    And the car pictured by steveshelbymustang is GT/101 ;)
     

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