One of only two alloy GT40s up for auction

The latest example of the epic Anglo-American motor racing milestone to come to market, it’s a 1966 GT40 Lightweight. A clue to its interesting past lies in its red and gold livery. Of course, it’s a GT40 that hails from Byfleet, Surrey and Alan Mann Racing.

In the early 1960s Alan Mann was a force in touring car racing with its dominant Cortinas driven by the star drivers of the day. In the US, though, it was the new GT40 with which Ford high-ups, including competition chief John Wyer, were preoccupied. Developing the GT40 into the multiple Le Mans victor it would become was not quick however and involved help from outside teams: in the US, Shelby American and Holman-Moody, and in Byfleet, Surrey, Alan Mann Racing which by 1965 was a Ford factory team.

Alan Mann’s answer to giving the GT40 Ferrari-beating pace was to make it lighter. So they updated the tub, tweaked the chassis and rendered that classic body shape in specially fabricated aluminium panels, saving weight over the fibreglass-bodied original. Just two cars with alloy bodies were built, one of which is the car you see here and which Gooding & Co will be auctioning at its Pebble Beach sale on August 13^th-14^th.

The Byfleet diet and 100 updates over the original GT40 quickly proved their worth, this car driven by Sir John Whitmore and Frank Gardner qualifying seventh at its racing debut in the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring. It next ran at the Le Mans Test in 1966 where it was the fourth fastest behind Ford’s Mk II GT40. It was the MkII, with its big-block V8 rather than the Mann car’s 289, that Ford ultimately went with.

The red and gold machine’s race history was over before it really got started. The car was sold to Holman-Moody and then passed through the hands of several private owners. When it was crashed on the road the opportunity arose for restoration. Finished in 2019, it took 15 years and as the pictures attest has resulted in an exceptional looking car – and one most important that is exactly as it looked at its Le Mans test in ’66.

Gooding says it is “one of the most unique and historically significant GT40s to come to public auction in years” and has put a guide price of $7-9m on it.

If it makes that it won’t be the most expensive Ford ever. The GT40 MkII that was third at Le Mans in 1966 made $9.8m in 2018 while the most expensive GT40 at auction was the car that won its debut race at Spa and went on to be a camera car for Steve McQueen's Le Mans movie. That one made $11m…

Images courtesy of Gooding & Co.