[DeTomaso] NPC

Sat Jun 22 03:14:58 EDT 2013

Thanks Mike!

Sent from my handheld gizmo, please forgive my typing!

On Jun 22, 2013, at 1:01 AM, MikeLDrew at aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 6/21/13 23 34 9, adin at frontier.net writes:

> Didn't someone write a book about the Wyer LeMans efforts? Racing In The Rain or something?  Always thought that could make a fascinating story- wonder if the book did the subject justice?

>>>It's a *fantastic* book.  By sheer coincidence, Pantera owner Peter Havlik from Canada e-mailed me an excerpt just two days ago:

‘Racing in the Rain: My Years With Brilliant Drivers, Legendary Sports Cars and a Dedicated Team’
By JOHN HORSMAN
Published: May 31, 2013

Chapter 3. Ford Advanced Vehicles (1964-1966) 

In 1964 engineer John Horsman joined Ford Advanced Vehicles, a partnership between the Ford Motor Company and Lola, the British sports-car constructor led by designer Eric Broadley. Its aim was to develop the Ford GT40 into an endurance racer that could compete successfully against Ferrari at Le Mans and other events. Horsman was hired by his former boss John Wyer, the longtime Aston-Martin racing team manager who led the marque to victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959. 

The entry of Ford Motor Company into European motor racing has been well documented, and the failure (as it was viewed by many) of the newly created Ford GT40 at the 1964 Le Mans 24 Hours is also well known. It was certainly considered a failure within Ford and by many in the press, but did anyone in the racing business really expect them to win first time out? Just to have finished the 24 Hours would have been a major achievement, but the cars had shown that they were very fast, with Phil Hill setting the quickest lap of the race. Phil had been second on the grid in the GT40’s first race at the Nürburgring, bested only by John Surtees in his Ferrari 275 P. The Fords had also shown they would be a serious threat in the future, given a sensible test and development program. 

Ford had started the bidding for entry into international road racing by trying to buy Ferrari, and discussions were well advanced before they finally broke down (which was just as well for the future of motor racing), so they decided to go it alone. The Lola Mk 6 GT, designed and built by Eric Broadley, had attracted Ford’s attention when it competed in the 1963 Le Mans 24 Hours, driven by David Hobbs and Richard Attwood. After considering other options, Ford offered Broadley a partnership to jointly produce a car to challenge the domination of Ferrari in FIA World Sports Car Racing. 

Unfortunately there was no clear definition of responsibilities from the outset, resulting in order and counter-order between Broadley and Ford engineer Roy Lunn. When I arrived at the Yeovil Road workshop, neither of these two great designers was speaking to the other, instead communicating through middleman Wyer. How three prototype cars got built at all in those working conditions is amazing. Wyer was nominally in charge of the operation, but even that changed from one Ford management meeting to the next, depending on internal politics. At the time of my arrival the operation was still being run under the Lola name and bank account, but Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV), with Walter Hayes and Sir Leonard Crossland, from Ford of Britain, and Wyer as the directors, was finally formed on July 1, 1964, just 4 days before the Reims 12 Hours. 

On arrival I was not exactly clear what my duties were to be, so I just assisted and encouraged where I could be the most use — but that was to change shortly. Everyone was exhausted from the long hours that had been the norm during the preceding months, and spirits were low. We believed that the entry of three cars for the 12-hour race so soon after Le Mans was a great mistake by the Ford hierarchy in Detroit. The press had been reasonably sympathetic regarding the Ford effort at Le Mans, and a period of retrenchment and serious development should have followed. Instead, there was what seemed to us to be a ridiculous desire to receive another bloody nose in the Ford–Ferrari war. Nothing in the way of increased reliability could be built into the cars during the 10 days between the two long-distance races. 

At Le Mans two cars had been eliminated by Colotti transmission failures. Despite all the facilities available in Detroit, Ford had not analyzed the Colotti transaxle, and it was used only because Eric Broadley had run it in the Lola Mk 6 prototype in 1963. Even then, it caused the car’s retirement. No attempt had been made by Ford engineering to improve it. 
I was at Reims when the rear doors of the race car transporter were opened, revealing the driveshaft of one car already broken and hanging down after its journey from Slough inside the transporter — incredible! What a way to start the weekend. The engine used so far for the GT40 had been the all-aluminum version of the pushrod 4.2-liter Fairlane engine, as raced at Indianapolis. Due to shortages of this engine, one newly built car, GT40/105, was powered by a 4.7-liter, all-cast-iron Cobra engine, for which there were great hopes in the 12 Hours. The Richie Ginther/Masten Gregory car, GT40/103, which had taken second place in qualifying (behind the privately entered Surtees/Bandini Ferrari) was the first Ford to retire with failure of the Colotti gearbox. Next was the Attwood/Schlesser Cobra engine car, with another gearbox failure. I was somewhat of a spectator at this race, because all the other team members took up the positions they had played at Le Mans, of which Reims seemed to be just a continuation. When this second GT40 stopped on the track somewhere past the pits, I persuaded one of the mechanics from that car to join me in trying to reach it in case there was anything we could do to make it run again. So we walked up alongside the track just as dawn was breaking, the race having started at midnight. We were about half a mile from the pits when our remaining car, GT40/102, driven by Bruce McLaren and Phil Hill, passed us. At that very instant the Fairlane Indy engine exploded most dramatically with a huge bang and clouds of sparks and smoke. That was the end of Reims for us. We never did find the car with the failed gearbox until it was retrieved after the race. 

After Reims there was a gradual withdrawal of the American engineers back to Dearborn, except for Len Bailey, who had worked tirelessly on the GT40 design and avoided the Ford politics. Bailey was an Englishman who had gone to the United States to work for Ford, now returning to the UK temporarily on the racing project. But Len’s greatest contribution was yet to come, and in the end he never returned to the U.S. Also at this time Eric Broadley decided he had had enough of Ford politics and split from FAV, taking his Lola men with him, of course, but also taking valuable ex-Aston craftsmen Laurie Bray, Terry Hadley, and Don Beresford, who had all elected to work for Eric. 
Until this split my own position and duties had been unclear, but now I became the engineer in charge of development, preparation, and racing at Slough. Presumably Wyer had foreseen that Broadley was about to depart and had held me in reserve until now. At FAV we were left in limbo while Dearborn hesitated on the proposed production of the GT40s. Within hours the “100-car” program was canceled and then reinstated. Finally Wyer was given the go-ahead, and suddenly we were very busy again. The greatest weakness of the car was obviously the Colotti gearbox. Veteran racing mechanic Alf Francis was associated with Colotti at that time, but even he could not improve its durability. When Wyer was managing director of Aston Martin, he had had excellent relations with Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen AG regarding a transmission for the DB5. Now he visited ZF twice during 1964 to check on the availability of a suitable transmission for the GT40. Wyer immediately ordered prototype versions of the ZF 5DS25 five-speed transaxle for endurance testing by FAV, even though delivery was 7 to 8 months away. 

As orders for the major components of the 100-car build were placed with our various suppliers, it was obvious that more testing was required to uncover weak points before parts were delivered to Slough. One of the areas giving trouble was the ventilation of the engine oiling system. Under high-cornering loads, oil was spraying out of the breathers. Ugly metal boxes were welded to the rocker covers as catch tanks. These delayed the onset of oil escaping but did not entirely cure this annoying problem. While testing at Silverstone one day Wyer suggested that I should accompany Richard Attwood in the passenger seat as he drove a GT40 around the track at racing speeds to observe the engine through the small glass rear window. I had to kneel on the passenger seat and hold on while Richard hurled the car through the corners. The oil loss problem did not occur at anything less than maximum cornering effort so Richard had to press on hard. I hung on, desperately trying not to fall on top of him; not being able to see ahead to anticipate the corners made it worse. The noise was shattering, and the g-forces were greater than any I had experienced before. In the end I saw nothing amiss in the engine bay and was glad when the ride was over. 