For sale: A GT40 MK1 Built for the Road and Returned Home to Racing
Image: RMD
This Ford GT40 was one of just thirty one road GT40s built by Ford Advanced Vehicles. Hardly a practical runabout, it was returned to race-ready rowdiness in its early life and is now up for sale at RMD.
Ford originally set out to build fifty road GT40s, but encountered a lack of interest in the impractical beast and chose to cease production at thirty plus a prototype.
The road cars shared much of the DNA of their race car brothers, but were calmed down a little with softened suspension, toned down brakes and a silencer fitted to the exhaust. Daily life conveniences included fitting a heater, de-mister, cloth interior, luggage boxes and even locks for the doors.
One of the 31 road-going GT40s, this car, chassis P/1062, was delivered in December of 1966 and assigned to Ford’s Kar Kraft division. It spent two undocumented years with Kar Kraft before it was finally moved in 1968 and sold in ’69 with a new road-modified MkII tail.
It spent the first year of its active life as a road car before being sold again and entering another undocumented phase of life. In the late ’70s the trail picks up with the car passing between two new owners before making its way to Jeff Lewis, a collector and racer in California.
Jeff immediately put it to good use, racing in the West Coast historic motorsport scene in the ’80s. The car had since been fitted with a standard Mk1 tail and was painted white with a black ‘go-faster’ racing stripe.
From this point the car barely had time to rest, making its way to Hans-Joachim Weber in Germany who modified it to full race spec and finished it in blue with a white centre stripe. Weber raced it actively for a full decade in Europe, eventually selling it to David McElrain, who already owned and raced another GT40 Mk1, in 1999.
As he, and most people, could only race one car at a time he set the current owner to driving duties of this car, eventually selling it to him in 2001.
He’s been racing P/1062 since then, earning successes in the Tour Auto, Le Mans Classic, Goodwood Revival and more. It has raced in the Le Mans Classic every year since 2004!
An inconsequential fire at Le Mans in 2006 served as the inspiration to provide the car with a full year-long restoration, which was completed before the next year’s event. It is currently receiving a full service to race-ready condition including fresh engine and gearbox, fuel bags, hub bearings and more.
It will include current FIA HTP papers and running spares for racing, making it a great option to hop into an interesting example one of history’s greatest sportscar racers and go racing. We can’t wait to see it go to a good home and keep up the stellar racing record its earned over the past three decades.
Head to RMD’s website here for more information.
Images via RMD
