Lot 511: 1968-69 Ford GT40 Competition Coupe
Sale Of Collectors' Motor Cars and Automobilia, Bonhams & Butterfields (18th August 2006)
[View all lots in this auction]Picture yourself easing open the long wrap-over driver's door of this wonderfully patinated Ford GT40. Just 40-inches high, of course, this classical 200mph legend barely comes up to your chest. Gaze down into its broad yet snugly tailored cockpit, and savor its wonderful period 1960s look. Relatively few GT40s today retain the original-style perforated driver-cooling upholstery. This one does. Relatively few GT40s today retain the original-style thin-rimmed leather-bound steering wheel. This one does. Ease open the famous clamshell rear body clip, and study this GT40's muscular Ford V8 engine. Relatively few GT40s today have featured Gurney-Weslake cylinder heads for the greater part of their lives. Yet this one has. Within context, what we are offering here is a wonderful GT40 for the discerning enthusiast - one with the patina of long preservation, coupled with the history of having been a genuine enthusiast's car throughout its long life.
British Ford racing privateer Terry Drury from Rainham, Essex had been running another GT40 (chassis 1005) during 1967 when he began 1073's story. He pulled together sufficient finance during the winter of 1967-68 to purchase from Ford's chosen manufacturers, JW Automotive Engineering Limited of Slough, Buckinghamshire, a brand-new but bare GT40 monocoque chassis, plus sufficient other components to complete assembly himself to racing standards.
He fitted a tail body section which had been taken from a Paul Hawkins mould Hawkeye being the colourful Australian racing driver and GT40 campaigner who famously drove for all manner of factory teams, including both Ferrari (in the P4s) and Porsche (for whom he had won the legendary Sicilian Targa Florio road race) in addition to Gulf-JW Ford themselves (for whom he would win the Monza 1,000Kms classic).
According to Ford GT40 authority Ronnie Spain, Terry Drury installed as new a standard Ford 289 cubic inch V8 engine and ZF gearbox, but the contemporary race report in Autospor't weekly covering its debut event the British BOAC 500 World Championship round on April 7, 1968 describes it as follows:
Chassis no 1073 (was) in a peculiar orangey-gold colour, for Terry Drury/Keith Holland; this one had Weslake heads and Tecalemit-Jackson fuel injection. The bronze-liveried car then qualified on the centre position of the ninth row in the 3-2-3 starting grid, with a lap time of 1 minute 43.2 seconds. In the second hour of the race Keith Holland brought the car into the pits to report a rough-running engine and Drury took over, only to return a couple of laps later for a plug change. Eventually after no fewer than 91 laps racing against the works Gulf-JWA GT40s, Porsche 907s, Ferrari 275LMs and Lola-Chevrolet T70GTs, Drury/Holland were forced to retire their private entry 1073 as the engine lost oil pressure.
The car was then taken to Italy for the superfast Monza 1,000 Kilometres in Milan's royal park on April 25. While the Gulf-JW �works� car of Hawkins/David Hobbs won outright, the Terry Drury/Terry Sanger 1073 now running on 48IDA twin-choke downdraught Weber carburettors in place of the troublesome T-J fuel injection system - again had a troubled race, this time with detached brake ducts and other ancillaries shaking loose at maximum speed around the punishingly bumpy Pista de Alta Velocita speedbowl section of the combined road-and-track circuit. They were not alone for Jo Siffert's brand-new second-placed works Porsche 908 also had a gearbox cooling duct wind itself round a half-shaft and rip oil pipes off its gearbox! Journalist Paddy McNally reported: Drury, after his early stop, had been going like a bomb until he got blinded by dirt at Lesmo and lost the GT40, spinning and riding the crash barrier. The two English enthusiasts then repaired and rebuilt1073 and trailed it far to the south down the leg of Italy and by ferryboat across the Straits of Messina to Sicily for the Targa Florio. The repaired and replacement body panels were sprayed overall white by a Sicilian painter, who charged Terry Drury the princely sum of £10 for his services. The rugged 44-mile Piccolo Madonie circuit won in the end, however, 1073 retiring after five of the scheduled ten laps.
The ADAC 1,000 Kilometres classic at the Nurburgring, Germany, followed, on May 19 with Drury and Terry Sanger again sharing the wheel of 1073. For the first time they finished, 34th overall, after completing 37 laps of the awe-inspiring 14.2-mile Nordschleife circuit. A really high-speed challenge then followed one week later, with the Spa 1,000 Kilometres classic in Belgium on May 26.
Friday practice ended with 1073 having lapped the long and dauntingly fast circuit in 4 minutes 0.4 seconds, and when the race began that Sunday under torrential rain Terry Drury put in a spectacular opening lap, completing it in 10th place overall, but after 12 laps the car's clutch failed and Terry Sanger did not get to drive at all.
Terry Drury then sold the car in June that year to Ron Fry, an English west country garage owner who had a long record of success in minor club events with the best available motor cars, including a Ferrari GTO, Ferrari 275LM, and an older Ford GT40 chassis 1017. He had then bought this lighter, more highly specified 1968 GT40 as his next big bazooka with which to overwhelm the club-racing fields. He made his winning debut in the ex-Drury car now resprayed red - at Castle Combe aerodrome circuit on July 13, 1968, and on August 4 took a second place at Thruxton. He won at Silverstone on August 25, and again on August 31 but then overturned the car at Brands Hatch during the Guards Trophy meeting of September 1-2.
Ron Fry began to rebuild 1073 around a new chassis that he had purchased from JW Automotive before being persuaded by his family to retire from further competition. Ford GT40 authority Ronnie Spain, relates how, Stripped and scrapped, the original chassis was sold off for £75 to Karl Davis of Bristol (15 March 1969), who still appears to have it and hopes it might someday be possible to rebuild it. More recently, in fact, that damaged tub has been sold on into other hands. Meantime the replacement chassis which Ron Fry had just purchased, together with his complete package of components, panels etc, was sold by him to enthusiastic British club racer Dennis Leech in Exeter, as a kit of parts. On February 9, 1969, all of this material was sold to existing GT40 owner Bryan Prynn in Oxfordshire.
Bryan Prynn then reassembled the car using a body clip bought from Paul Hawkins for £225 and all the chromed suspension parts from his other GT40, 1006. This re-emergent 1073 was sprayed orange and black, and featured wide alloy wheels and widened tail body section to accommodate them. It was registered for road use B 133, and on February 22, 1970, it was sold to Glynis Childs in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, for whom the car was driven in sprints and hill-climbs by Michael Wright 1970-71.
It was then stored until 1979, when it was acquired by Martin Johnson in Newton-le-Willows, who used it very rarely. On April 13, 1982, it was sold to American Ford GT collector George Stauffer via Ronnie Spain in Wisconsin. A two-year restoration was then undertaken, supervised by Jeff Sime.
In 1983 the car was part-exchanged in mid-restoration with Nick Soprano of White Plains, New York who took delivery upon completion of the restoration early in 1984. Old 1073 had been repainted in its current red livery and from Mr Soprano it passed subsequently to Peter Kaus�s fabulous Rosso Bianco Collection, situated in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Upon recent inspection the car is reported to have been run and driven a modest distance but the brakes will need attention.
The car has been very little used in Rosso Bianco's tenure, and is offered here in beautifully aged condition reflecting quite accurately the very best of customer Ford GT40 allure for the private owner/drivers of the later 1960s; with the extra cachet of its Gurney-Weslake-headed 289 cubic inch Ford V8 engine, and its continuous identity, historical association with daring deeds on the World Championship tour Brands Hatch, Monza, Nurburgring, Spa-Francorchamps, and the mighty Targa Florio.
With the emergence of so many appropriate events and races from the Tour Auto and Goodwood Revival in Europe, to the Monterey Historics here in the USA GT40s are the all encompassing road/track 1960s V8 racer to have.
Lot Details
Auction Sale Of Collectors' Motor Cars and Automobilia
Bonhams & Butterfields, Quail Lodge, Carmel, California
Type Car
Lot Number 511
Estimate $700000-$900000
Outcome NOT SOLD
Hammer Price -
Hammer Price (inc premium) -
Year 1968
Condition rating
Registration number
Mileage -
Chassis number GT40P/1073
Engine number
Engine capacity (cc)
Engine - cylinders
Number of doors
