1967 Le Mans

1967 — Ferrari lashed back at the V8s. Ford had crushed them at Le Mans, practically a home game for Modena. In Formula 1, Jack Brabham’s tiny Repco Brabham team, with sohc engines based on an American Oldsmobile motor, bested Ferrari in a year that the experts agreed unanimously belonged to Ferrari. No one had expected John Surtees to quit. And no one expected Ferrari to run him off in favor of locals.

Incensed Ferrari dispatched a complete team of the new P4s to Florida for the 24 Hours of Daytona and backstopped them with entries from NART. Phil Hill dominated the opening laps in Jim Hall’s nee 2F coupe with the big Chaparral-signature wing. The big Fords all suffered broken gearboxes, and the best Ford at the end was John Wyer’s fifth place GT40 with Jacky Ickx and Dick Thompson, 65 laps behind.

The top three Ferrari’s staged a much more disciplined and handsome PR photo shoot on the Tri-Oval, and mighty Ford didn’t look so mighty all of a sudden. What went on in Dearborn on Monday morning following Daytona was the sort of thing that gives American business a bad reputation.

Ford execs calmed down slightly when the new MkIV won Sebring, but Ferrari was not at strength. Ford stayed away from Monza, Spa, the Targa and Nurburgring to concentrate on the one road race that meant anything to Mr. Ford Himself and the guys in marketing.

By Memorial Day, AJ Foyt had provided Ford marketing, advertising and PR with another windfall: the Texan won a record third Indy 500 with Ford power in a car of his own manufacture. For Le Mans, the Texan was teamed with Dan Gurney who had gone into the racecar building biz with help from Goodyear and Carroll Shelby, architect of Ford’s flawed first victory at Le Mans.

Ford had a two-pronged approach. Shelby had the Gurney/Foyt MkIV and a MkIIB for Ronnie Bucknum and Paul Hawkins. Ford France entered a lone MkIIB; Holman and Moody had the three MKIVs and a single IIB.

Ferrari had done the best job during the April tests: de facto team leader Lorenzo Bandini bumped the lap record to 146.53mph, but that was strictly unofficial. SEFAC Ferrari had a trio of Daytona-winning P4s. Maranello Concessionaires, Ecurie National Belge, Filipinetti and Luigi Chinetti backed up the works with five prototypes of varying pedigrees.

Porsche didn’t stint and brought five cars – 910s, 907, 906. They had won the Targa and the Nurburgring and were ready to strike in the event that the Battle of The Giant Corporate & Latin Egos got any further out of hand, which didn’t seem possible. Likewise Alfa Romeo entered three of its new 2.0-liter Tipo 33 Prototypes with Porsche’s reputation and showroom success in mind.

Lola, seminal marque for Ford’s Le Mans program, had two lovely new coupes for reigning Can-Am champion John Surtees and the man who started it all for Lola, David Hobbs. Chris Irwin and Peter De Klerk backed them up.

John Wyer Engineering (formerly doing business as Ford Advanced Vehicles) had a pair of Ford-powered "Mirages" that looked and sounded like Ford GT40s for David Piper/Dick Thompson and Alan Rees who was paired with Le Mans sophomore Jacky Ickx. Chaparral Cars brought a pair of crowd pleasing 7.0-liter Chevy-powered 2Fs led by Phil Hill.

The field was heavy with prototypes, but everyone came to see the Ford-Ferrari war and/or the first three hours of the race, which is traditionally the fun part with all the adrenaline and testosterone in it.

Ford’s gang of Mk IV racers was visibly unhappy, even though they had the fastest cars on the Sarthe. Windshields were popping out at the serious end of the Mulsanne straight, which made it difficult to concentrate on fast laps and chassis setups. Finally Ford ran out of spare windshields and several MkIVs were blasting around with yards of tape holding the windows together. On Friday afternoon, a man from Owens-Corning appeared with some brand new, guaranteed to 200-plus mph windshields and two gents from 3M’s Brussels office who brought their own windshield glue.

Ferrari had one of its precious P4s balked by the wobbly NART P2; Ferrari new hire Gunther Klass ended up in the woods sitting in the remains of his ex-brand new P4.

The Hill/Mike Spence Chaparral was just going fast while everyone waited for it to break. The Aston-powered Lolas wouldn’t go at all despite Surtees’ best efforts. Both cars were suffering serious Mulsanne-related issues. Over at Porsche, everything was the very soul of serenity.

Bucknum’s MkII was first away and stayed out front for the media-critical first lap. Gurney couldn’t join the photo-op, as he was preoccupied with his seat belt on the run to Mulsanne. He finally slowed to something like 190mph, got the cockpit cleared for action and spent the run to the first pit stop in second.

The Chaparral 2F got the lead during the first round of pit stops and this pleased the spectators (who were not necessarily Chaparral fans, but were serious Ford-haters) mightily. Foyt took over for Gurney, and Spence pitted the Chaparral after and hour and 17 minutes. That’s when the No. 1 Ford went into the lead, where it stayed for the next 22 hours and 43 minutes.

Behind them, Ford’s reputation was suffering. A parade of nonscheduled pit stops began to call the reliability of all the Dearborn cars into question. Foyt and Gurney carried on with a relentlessness that sent a clear message to Ferrari.

The two tall Americans in the Shelby-entered MkIV were simply in a universe of their own, while things went to hell all around them. Chris Amon’s P4 burned to the ground after he tried to drive to the pits on a flat tire. The Bucknum/Hawkins MkIIB spent two hours in the pits, where the cooling system was repaired with welding equipment.

What little of the partisan crowd remained got something to gloat over near 4:00 a.m. when Mario Andretti took over the No. 3 Ford from Lucien Bianchi. Mario’s second place MkIV was due for a major stop, including a time-consuming full brake service. On his outlap Andretti descended into the esses and pushed the middle pedal. The Ford heaved hard right, nosed into the embankment, ricocheted across the road and hammered the other bank. He escaped with bruised ribs, but both ends of the car were gone.

Two cars in the undercard slithered through Andretti’s fresh debris field. That’s exactly when Roger McClusky arrived in the Holman Moody No. 5 MkIIB he shared with Frank Gardner. The culturally disoriented McClusky was an unhappy ninth when he saw the mess, spun and removed the tail of his Ford. Then Jo Schlesser appeared at full trot in his Ford France-entered MkIIB and made it a threesome. In one stroke Ferrari, who couldn’t keep the leading Americans in sight, had inherited second place. The fans now had their beloved Chaparral third, but, at that hour, there were few around to cheer either Chaparral’s good fortune or Ford’s bad luck.

By dawn, the third-place Hill/Spence Chaparral was stationary with a seriously weepy transmission seal. The crew made a gallant two-hour effort to staunch the breach, but the No. 7 car went to the dead car park before noon.

The atmosphere in the pits and tribunes was still hopeful. In the pits, all waited for the other shoe to drop, hoping that Gurney’s last-minute bad luck would not appear. Across the road there was hope that an avalanche of bad luck would crush Ford and leave the way clear for Mike Parkes and Ludovico Scarfiotti. Or Willy Mairesse and Jean Blaton; or even Jo Siffert and Hans Hermann in the amazing 2.0-liter Porsche 907.

Bad luck and good visited Bruce McLaren on the way to Mulsanne, when the rear bodywork of the MkIV he shared with Mark Donohue blew off. McLaren pitted, grabbed some tools and tape and returned to the course to recover the bodywork. Ford engineers had ordered that the MkIV engine cover be hinged at the tail to permit easier access during pit stops. Shelby protested employing experience, common sense, logic and some blunt and elementary tenets of cocktail-napkin level aerodynamics. Overruled.

By the afternoon, the massive Ford effort was down to two cars. But the leading Gurney/Foyt MkIV was in fine voice and sounded stronger as the afternoon passed. The No. 1 car was operating in some strange dimension where it was unfazed by the problems of mere mortals.

Despite the best efforts of glaziers, engineers and publicity experts to undo them, Foyt and Gurney won Le Mans one more time for Dearborn with a four-lap margin. The McLaren/Donohue car was fourth – the marketing department robbed of the opportunity for a one-two finish by the demand of the Holman Moody people that the hoods be hinged at the tail for ease of maintenance.

Ferraris were second and third, beaten comprehensively and shadowed by a trio of faultless Porsche prototypes. Jo Siffert and Hans Hermann were fifth OA and first in class in a 907; then Rolf Stommelen and Jochen Neerpasch in a 910 followed by Vic Elford and Ben Pon in a Carrera Six

Dan Gurney made more history by inventing a tradition. He took the winners’ magnum of champagne, gave it a good bounce and wiggle and sprayed everyone he could – including Mrs. Henry Ford II who had wisely worn a raincoat to the victory lane ritual.

A week later, Gurney sprayed more champagne after winning the Belgian GP at Spa. It was the sole victory for his elegant Formula 1 Eagle. This extraordinary week equaled the feat of Phil Hill who, in 1961, won both Le Mans and Spa for Ferrari within the span of one week. Unlike Hill, Gurney never became world champion. Spa was the final GP victory of his career. Three-time Indy 500 champion AJ Foyt was perhaps the most gracious winner of all, praising Gurney without reservation for their dominant victory at Le Mans.

On July 30, Phil Hill and Mike Spence won the final race of the championship sports car season at Brands Hatch. Ferrari was second and Porsche was third. Ferrari won the World Sports Car Championship from Porsche in Britain by two thin points. But Ford had sports car racing’s ultimate prize. Then Phil Hill retired, and the CSI banned the unlimited prototypes.