59 replies to this topic

[ianrand]

In this day and age, any “barn find race car” is rare and unique, but it's even better when it's one of only two surviving 1967 Ford MKIIB''s in the world. This car (H/M GT40P 1047) has been sitting in storage in Japan since the early 1970's.

Long time GT40 enthusiasts may remember the famous crash @ 1967 LeMans that took out three Fords all at once. This car (Holman Moody team car #5, metallic gold with white stripes) was one of the unlucky three. After LeMans, 1047 sat in storage at Holman Moody until 1972, at which time it was rebuilt and sold/shipped it to Japan. The car sat in storage in Japan, covered in dust & dirt, exact location & serial number unknown, until it was discovered in the new millennium.

Recently restored to its original 1967 LeMans livery, H/M GT40P 1047 will debut at the 2012 LeMans Classic Heritage Club (ironically 45 years after its last LeMans race).

TNFer's in attendance are invited to check it out some of 1047's unusual features: metallic gold lacquer paint (matched to original paint chip on car), tilting front clip, electroluminescent door roundel panels, notched cowl per FIA suitcase regulations, unique polycarbonate airbox system on 565HP 427 tunnelport engine, etc.

Cheers!

[Allen Brown]

I would be very interested to see pictures of this car when "in Japan, covered in dust & dirt". Has anyone seen any?

[David Birchall]

There is a photo of 1047 covered in dust and dirt, with engine removed, on page 459 of "The Ford That Beat Ferrari".

[Allen Brown]

Excellent David. Definitely taken in Japan? Any idea of the year it was taken?

[fbarrett]

Not to rain on the Ford parade, but I thought the Mk IIB driven by McCluskey and involved in the accident was 1031. Am I wrong?

The third car was 1015, driven by Jo Schlesser.

Frank

[Arjan de Roos]

TNFer's in attendance are invited to check it out some of 1047's unusual features....

Thank you!

[David Birchall]

Excellent David. Definitely taken in Japan? Any idea of the year it was taken?

The caption reads "1047 after many years in Japan" " (via Lee Holman)". The book was published in 2005.

[elansprint72]

..................

Long time GT40 enthusiasts may remember the famous crash @ 1967 LeMans that took out three Fords all at once. This car (Holman Moody team car #5, metallic gold with white stripes) was one of the unlucky three. After LeMans, 1047 sat in storage at Holman Moody until 1972, at which time it was rebuilt and sold/shipped it to Japan. .................

Cheers!

From Ronnie Spain's 1986 edition, page 246, GT40P/1047:

He details what happened to the car at Le Mans and Daytona 1966, then ......"It was later rebuilt to full MkIIB specification and finished in light blue for Le Mans (1967), where it eventually expired, after a charge through the field following lots of lost time in the early stages of the race. Afterwards it was flown back to Holman & Moody (sic), and after a quick rebuild (including a new engine) it was shipped back out to Ford France to race for the remainder of the season, winning the Reims 12 Hours race along the way.... ". Spain then details how it passed to Pierre Bardinon (Mas du Clos) and to Freddy Chandon, then to an anonymous Parisian collector who had it restored in Switz by Franco Sbarro, still in it's race-winning trim.

Funny thing, history.

[ianrand]

Note to "Elansprint72":

Ronnie Spain's 1986 Edition is a fine book and as you correctly stated, "history is indeed a funny thing".

Many people are unaware that the two leading authorities on GT40's (Ronnie Spain & the Shelby American Automobile Club) have both revised their history of 1047 and their recent summaries match my initial post. (Ronnie in his upcoming book and the SAAC in their 4th Edition World Registry, p1006 & p1007).

My company was responsible for the preservation/restoration of the two surviving MKIIB's: GT40P/1031 (the 1967 Ford Frost Turquoise MKIIB in the Collier Museum which underwent a preservation effort retaining its 1967 1000Km de Paris specification) and GT40P/1047 (this metallic gold MKIIB which was fully restored to its 1967 LeMans specification). The intertwining history of these two MKIIB's is quite interesting and after 1047 debuts at the LeMans Classic, more info & pics will be posted on the website www.racingicons.

Hopefully we can get out of the speculation weed patch and join with fellow TNFer Arjan de Roos and celebrate the fact that this wonderful race car has come back for the public to see & hear perform on the track once again.

[Macca]

It seems 1047 was to have been entered at Reims and all the paperwork, carnets, etc were prepared with that c/n before Le Mans......so 1031 was renumbered and has kept that identity and the pale-blue colours, while the shattered gold car from Le Mans disappeared for years.

Paul M

[elansprint72]

Note to "Elansprint72":

Ronnie Spain's 1986 Edition is a fine book and as you correctly stated, "history is indeed a funny thing".

Many people are unaware that the two leading authorities on GT40's (Ronnie Spain & the Shelby American Automobile Club) have both revised their history of 1047 and their recent summaries match my initial post. (Ronnie in his upcoming book and the SAAC in their 4th Edition World Registry, p1006 & p1007).

My company was responsible for the preservation/restoration of the two surviving MKIIB's: GT40P/1031 (the 1967 Ford Frost Turquoise MKIIB in the Collier Museum which underwent a preservation effort retaining its 1967 1000Km de Paris specification) and GT40P/1047 (this metallic gold MKIIB which was fully restored to its 1967 LeMans specification). The intertwining history of these two MKIIB's is quite interesting and after 1047 debuts at the LeMans Classic, more info & pics will be posted on the website www.racingicons.

Hopefully we can get out of the speculation weed patch and join with fellow TNFer Arjan de Roos and celebrate the fact that this wonderful race car has come back for the public to see & hear perform on the track once again.

"ianrand", one of my other interests is Napoleonic "history" which, so it seems, is re-written by every new book which comes along! On this scale the GT40 does not even register!
I shall be working at Le Mans Classic and hopefully we will bump into one another- Ill drop you a PM and maybe we can meet up? If both Spain and the SAAC are changing their positions, this is big news indeed.

[Allen Brown]

Hopefully we can get out of the speculation weed patch and join with fellow TNFer Arjan de Roos and celebrate the fact that this wonderful race car has come back for the public to see & hear perform on the track once again.

The TNF community is a diverse one but I think it would be fair to say that it leans more towards a desire to know history than to celebrate reappearances. If you post here that a car has reappeared, you have to expect people to ask where it's been and sometimes to ask even more pointed questions. If all you want is celebration, maybe you picked the wrong forum to post this.

If I write a history of a car, I don't expect anyone to accept my conclusions at face value. I show my workings, as my old maths teacher would have put it. So I'm afraid that "barn find race car" just doesn't cut it for me. I've heard that story too often. So I will ask questions. And you are of course at liberty to refuse to answer.

[Catalina Park]

Do they have barns in Japan?
"Barn find" is a term that annoys me.

[275 GTB-4]

Do they have barns in Japan?
"Barn find" is a term that annoys me.

Would you prefer "Shed" or "lean too" Mike??

[Tony Matthews]

"Barn find" is a term that annoys me.

"...it was rebuilt and sold/shipped it to Japan. The car sat in storage in Japan,..."

"Barn find" does seem a slightly odd term for the conditions in which this amazing car was found. As someone who did make a barn find, of a car that was known to exist but had not been seen for years, it seems less than accurate.

[Bloggsworth]

The Japanese saw the writing on the wall and chose to make their "barns" in origami, they are intricately folded from paper...

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Catalina Park
Do they have barns in Japan?
"Barn find" is a term that annoys me.

Irrespective of whether or not they have barns, the term implies the unexpected finding of something which had been to at least some degree lost...

As mentioned above by Tony, it is said to have 'sat in storage'... that might even mean climate controlled conditions for all we know!

I don't mind 'barn find' being applied to everyday sheds or other outdoor structures if the find is significant. For instance, the 4.5-litre 1919 Indianapolis Ballot was found by Ron Edgerton when he spotted a Rudge Whitworth wheel cap sticking out of a pile of hay or something similar. He had been looking for motorcycles on farms in Southern NSW at the time, so it was really quite a find... if anyone should have known where this car had got to, Ron should have been the one.

That's a genuine barn find, even without a barn...

[D-Type]

From Ronnie Spain's 1986 edition, page 246, GT40P/1047:

He details what happened to the car at Le Mans and Daytona 1966, then ......"It was later rebuilt to full MkIIB specification and finished in light blue for Le Mans (1967), where it eventually expired, after a charge through the field following lots of lost time in the early stages of the race. Afterwards it was flown back to Holman & Moody (sic), and after a quick rebuild (including a new engine) it was shipped back out to Ford France to race for the remainder of the season, winning the Reims 12 Hours race along the way.... ". Spain then details how it passed to Pierre Bardinon (Mas du Clos) and to Freddy Chandon, then to an anonymous Parisian collector who had it restored in Switz by Franco Sbarro, still in it's race-winning trim.

Funny thing, history.

Note to "Elansprint72":

Ronnie Spain's 1986 Edition is a fine book and as you correctly stated, "history is indeed a funny thing".

Many people are unaware that the two leading authorities on GT40's (Ronnie Spain & the Shelby American Automobile Club) have both revised their history of 1047 and their recent summaries match my initial post. (Ronnie in his upcoming book and the SAAC in their 4th Edition World Registry, p1006 & p1007).

My company was responsible for the preservation/restoration of the two surviving MKIIB's: GT40P/1031 (the 1967 Ford Frost Turquoise MKIIB in the Collier Museum which underwent a preservation effort retaining its 1967 1000Km de Paris specification) and GT40P/1047 (this metallic gold MKIIB which was fully restored to its 1967 LeMans specification). The intertwining history of these two MKIIB's is quite interesting and after 1047 debuts at the LeMans Classic, more info & pics will be posted on the website www.racingicons.

Hopefully we can get out of the speculation weed patch and join with fellow TNFer Arjan de Roos and celebrate the fact that this wonderful race car has come back for the public to see & hear perform on the track once again.

It seems 1047 was to have been entered at Reims and all the paperwork, carnets, etc were prepared with that c/n before Le Mans......so 1031 was renumbered and has kept that identity and the pale-blue colours, while the shattered gold car from Le Mans disappeared for years.

Paul M

This is what matters - not the interpretation of 'barn find'

It is a pity that @ianrand didn't make the reason for the revision to the commonly accepted history clearer in the first post.

It is not sufficient to say that Ronnie Spain and the SAAC are correcting their 'histories' - Until they publish the change, the corrected story needs to be explained in simple and unambiguous terms (ie such that it can be easily understood and translated by non-English speakers) and communicated as widely as possible - ie to anyone with a website or database tracking these cars. It also needs to be done by someone authoritative so that the information is trusted. If this is not done, the 'speculation weed patch' will grow exponentially and sprout branches.

As we have seen previously on TNF, correcting the record when the perceived wisdom has got it wrong is extremely difficult.

[David Birchall]

Here is the page from "The Ford That Beat Ferrari" by John Allen and gordon Jones:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The captions read: "1046 and others in the Holman & Moody Garage c1968 (gil Jackson)" For the top photo.

And : " 1047 after many years in Japan (via Lee Holman)" for the lower photo.
I interpret this as the photo was taken in Japan and supplied by Lee Holman...

Edit: However, the floor and the blue supports look very similar to the ones in the Holman and Moody shop photo...

Edited by David Birchall, 28 June 2012 - 18:57.

[D-Type]

The blue supports are different - the Japanese ones have no cross beams in either direction and the spacing of the legs is closer.

[David Birchall]

The blue supports are different - the Japanese ones have no cross beams in either direction and the spacing of the legs is closer.

Bear in mind that over forty years separates the two photos if I understand it correctly.

[Piquet959]

On the topic of Ford GT40.

I happened to be at Amaroo Park Raceway one year on the Friday before the Historic race meeting. There were two GT40 there that day. They were both on the track at same time but fortunately half a lap apart.
One was Candy Apple Red in colour
The other was in full Gulf Racing colours of light blue and orange. I was told that it was a back up car at LeMNs but never used.
I think the car was imported into Australia by Laurie ONeil and was doing some private practice.

I have some before and after photos of the car. In the paddock area it looked fine but about half an hour later it was crashed going up Bitupave Hil. The damage was quite extensive as it spun going up the hill and clouted the outside rock face/ wall with both the front and rear of the car. The car was scattered all along the track.

I have some photos of the incident somewhere.
Needless to say it took no further part in the race meeting.

Never heard of exactly what happened to the car after that.

[Lee Nicolle]

The blue supports are different - the Japanese ones have no cross beams in either direction and the spacing of the legs is closer.

Different premises. The bottom pic seems to be a storage garage whereas the HM ones are in a workshop area.
It seems lots of these race cars have gotten 'lost' because they travelled on 'shonky' carnets.

[PAUL S]

Different premises. The bottom pic seems to be a storage garage whereas the HM ones are in a workshop area.
It seems lots of these race cars have gotten 'lost' because they travelled on 'shonky' carnets.

thats exactly what happened to my F3000 reynard, it was replaced mid season by another newer chassis, but wearing my cars chassis plate to get it through customs at the european races. I have found some of the damage it encountered in early races under the paint and the suspension is etched with the correct number, but the later car is now up for sale claiming to be mine.

[elansprint72]

A remarkable car in every respect.

[elansprint72]

[helioseism]

So, with these new developments, any word on when Ronnie Spain's new edition of his Ford GT40 book might appear?

[David Birchall]

Ronnie Spain reported on another forum that he expected to have the book at the printers soon.

Edit: here is his actual comment from the GT40 forum-

"Provided I can keep my sanity intact (or as much as is left of it anyway) I will finally have this life-draining new book off to the printers this autumn. And if you guys think you've been waiting a while, think how I feel!!

Edited by David Birchall, 12 July 2012 - 15:42.

[Steve Sobieralski]

My company was responsible for the preservation/restoration of the two surviving MKIIB's: GT40P/1031 (the 1967 Ford Frost Turquoise MKIIB in the Collier Museum which underwent a preservation effort retaining its 1967 1000Km de Paris specification) and GT40P/1047 (this metallic gold MKIIB which was fully restored to its 1967 LeMans specification). The intertwining history of these two MKIIB's is quite interesting and after 1047 debuts at the LeMans Classic, more info & pics will be posted on the website www.racingicons.

May I ask whether the chassis of these two cars were painted blue or black?

Steve Sobieralski

[Doug Nye]

Ah yes.

I helped train Ronnie well...



DCN

[helioseism]

Fine wine must age for a while....

[elansprint72]

[scags]

Nice shot! thanks.

[Peter Leversedge]

Can any one tell me how many GT40s were built in the day?

[Lee Nicolle]

It seems that the number rondells are riveted on? And the 2 strips riveted on the door and sill.
Can someone explain?
The one real GT40 I have seen I cannot remember any external rivets at all.

[elansprint72]

It seems that the number rondells are riveted on? And the 2 strips riveted on the door and sill.
Can someone explain?
The one real GT40 I have seen I cannot remember any external rivets at all.

I hope ianrand does not mind me quoting from his e-mail to me earlier today:

"I suspect you were far too busy with other more important stuff to get any night time photos of 1047's electroluminescent door roundels turned on? The car originally had them @ '67 LeMans. It was a lot of work to locate & re-install the panels (using the original pop rivet holes in each door & rocker panel). It was worth it though, as 1047 is one of very few (if any) restored vintage race cars out there with EL panels."

So there is the answer; unfortunately I did not get any photos of it in the dark.

[Tuboscocca]

I hope ianrand does not mind me quoting from his e-mail to me earlier today:

"I suspect you were far too busy with other more important stuff to get any night time photos of 1047's electroluminescent door roundels turned on? The car originally had them @ '67 LeMans. It was a lot of work to locate & re-install the panels (using the original pop rivet holes in each door & rocker panel). It was worth it though, as 1047 is one of very few (if any) restored vintage race cars out there with EL panels."

So there is the answer; unfortunately I did not get any photos of it in the dark.

Pete, if that's true--why the illumination behind the roundels...(on the doors of the above car)

Regards Michael

[elansprint72]

Pete, if that's true--why the illumination behind the roundels...(on the doors of the above car)

Regards Michael

I imagine that it was for the same reason that many of the cars in 2003 (the last time I was at the24hrs) were using both means of illumination- belt and braces.

[scags]

Looking at post #19, that's one big lump of motor and trans axle. I assume it was an iron block? They must have had a lot of rear weight bias.

[elansprint72]

[jj2728]

The Andretti/Ginther car at Daytona 1967. So which one is it?
1031
1047
1031/1047



Copyright JAG

[Lee Nicolle]

Looking at post #19, that's one big lump of motor and trans axle. I assume it was an iron block? They must have had a lot of rear weight bias.

All the more to hook all that power up!!
The small block cars [289s] would be very light compared with the 427s. Those FE engines are a big powerfull heavy lump.
Far better 45 years down the track with all the alloy bits advailable now. And a lot more power too!

[Allan Lupton]

Looking at post #19, that's one big lump of motor and trans axle. I assume it was an iron block? They must have had a lot of rear weight bias.

We sometimes think that way in Europe, but a lot of Detroit iron casting was so good that the blocks were not much heavier than light alloy ones of equivalent strength.

[Kpy]

The Andretti/Ginther car at Daytona 1967. So which one is it?
1031
1047
1031/1047



Copyright JAG

No. 5 (pictured) was 1031 driven by Andretti/Ginther,

1047 was no. 6 driven by Foyt/Gurney.

[Stefan Schmidt]

By the way.. Loic Depailler, son of F1 Legend Patrick Depailler was driving a Ford GT40 number "44" at Le Mans Classic Festival

[Tuboscocca]

I imagine that it was for the same reason that many of the cars in 2003 (the last time I was at the24hrs) were using both means of illumination- belt and braces.

Thanks!!

Michael

[PS30-SB]

A remarkable car in every respect.

Sorry to go slightly O/T, but did you happen to photograph any of the cars in the display that formed the backdrop to the 'Concours d'Elegance' / 24 Hours Heritage Club display area?

That whole fenced-off area was sponsored by Nissan. Can just about see some of it in the background of this pic.

[MaserGT]

Some nice detail photographs of 1047 at art-racing.com:

art-racing.com

[elansprint72]

Sorry to go slightly O/T, but did you happen to photograph any of the cars in the display that formed the backdrop to the 'Concours d'Elegance' / 24 Hours Heritage Club display area?

That whole fenced-off area was sponsored by Nissan. Can just about see some of it in the background of this pic.

Apologies, I have very little interest in modern cars.

[PS30-SB]

Apologies, I have very little interest in modern cars.

Me too, but I'm not talking about the moderns.

The one I'm wondering whether you photographed at all was built in 1971. The first time such a car has ever set 'foot' on French - or indeed mainland European - soil, as far as I'm aware.

An interesting curiosity for some, maybe?