Le Mans 1966 to 1969
1966
1966 was the year of the famous Ford GT40 1-2-3 finish. Ford put out a promotional film to celebrate this win which shows some great race footage. The winning GT40 "Mark II" cars were in the Prototype class, because they were modified beyond the limits of the homologated GT40 "Mark I" cars in the Sport class. There were a few GT class cars, namely the Ferrari 275 GTB's. Porsche scored an "S" class win with the 906 carerra. More importantly, a privateer 911 ran in its first LeMans, as the lone car running in the 2.0 litre GT class.
Cars #1 thru #8 were semi-works Ford GT40 Mark II's, although the cars were run by three separate teams. Carrol Shelby entered cars #1 - #3, NASCAR powerhouse Holman & Moody entered #4-#6, and gave Mario Andretti his first crack at Le Mans. The British Alan Mann team ran #7 and #8. With this eight car assault, Ferrari was pounded into submission.
GT40 Diecast
While the theme of LeMans 1966 was the "yanks" beating up Ferrari, many of the current GT40 models are Italian. Bang puts out a series of mediocre cars, and there is also the obscure "OXA" brand which features opening doors and hood. I have never seen one of these up close, but I have heard they slightly better than Bang. Eagle's Race put out a few from the old Jouef molds, using the same model numbers. They're even worse than the Bang items. Interestingly, Bang produces all of these except car #4 (which was driven by a young Mark Donohue). A good GT40 is the mega-expensive handbuilt Jouef 1969 winner.
IXO has turned the 1:43 scale GT40 world upside-down with their products, which have some of the best paint application I've seen. Definitely on a par with Minichamps.
Ferrari entries
Ferrari's big hope for 1966 was the P3, but they had only two SEFAC (Works) cars plus a semi-works N.A.R.T. entry. (As the American team had won Le Mans the previous year, they presumably got "front of the line" privliges for the new P3) There was a big labor strike in Italy early in the year that caused delays in steel and components. They had planned to match Ford's eight-car lineup, but had to let their customers settle for last year's cars...
Scuderia Filipinetti - typically Swiss politics?
This classic Swiss team expressed "neutrality" and had a foot in both camps, running both a Ford GT40 and a Ferrari 365 P2.
1966 Le Mans Classes |
|---|
Name |
FIA Class |
Description |
Subclasses |
P |
Group 6 |
Prototypes (No homologation minimum) |
Over 2 Litre (Unlimited) |
| 2-litre |
Under 1.3-litre |
S |
Group 4 |
Sportcars (50 unit homologation) |
Over 2-litre |
Under 2-litre |
GT |
Group 3 |
Production GT Cars (500 cars/year) |
|
1967
Ford Mark IV
Ford showed up with the "Longtail" Ford Mark IV for 1967. While Foyt and Gurney won, Ferrari's were second and third. It wasn't the dominant formation 1-2-3 finish like the previous year, but at least two well-known American racers had won for Ford. Satisfied with outpacing Enzo, Edsel closed down the factory supported program but lent privateer support ot John Wyer.
The old Solido's come with markings for cars #1 red, #2 yellow, and #3 bronze, but color determines the proper decals to use. (Is there a #4 silver???)
Long list of class winners
1967 Le Mans Classes |
|---|
Name |
FIA Class |
Description |
Subclasses |
P |
Group 6 |
Prototypes (No homologation minimum) |
Over 5 Liter (Unlimited) |
| 5-litre |
| 2-litre |
1.6-litre |
1.3-litre |
1.15-litre |
S |
Group 4 |
Sportcars (50 unit homologation) |
5-litre |
2-litre |
1.3-litre |
GT |
Group 3 |
Production GT Cars (500 cars/year) |
Over 5-litre |
5-litre |
2-litre |
Sportscar class
In this era, the "Sportscars" class was for vehicles with a minumum production run of 50. These cars were derived from a road-legal base, and had engines up to 5.0 litres. This minumum number would be reduced to 25 for 1969 and would yield completely unintended consequences.
Prototype class
Prototypes had no production minimum, and less design constraints
1968
JWA Gulf
JW Gulf's Mirage M1 was made obsolete by the 1968 rule changes, so they went back to running a homologated GT40 in the 5.0 litre Sportscar class.
...More on the JW Gulf team at 1967
Alfa Romeo
While Ferrari, Porsche and Ford are remembered as heavy hitters during this era, Alfa Romeo had a serious program with some beautiful cars. After the GT-classed TZ cars in 1964 and 1965, they built a "Tipo 33 2-litre" (T33/2) car for the "Sports-Prototype" class. This car was raced in 1967 and was greatly modified for 1968. Intrestingly, the 1968 revision is much better looking that its predecessor. This is unusual as cars generally start off looking great on paper, and then get hacked up during development by the addition of odd cooling or downforce bodywork changes. They even made an especially attractive longtail (coda lunga) version for Le Mans which was the accepted practice.
Reference Links:
wspr-racing.com Le Mans 1968
1969
1969 was the only year that the Ferrari Works team ran the 312P Coupé at Le Mans. The 5-litre 512S would be made in 1970 to battle the Porsche 917.
Porsche 908
The original Porsche 908 had a sleek coupé body. The crappy Solido 908 is the only remotely accurate model of this important car.
...More on the Porsche 908
Porsche 917
At LeMans, things started badly for the 917s. John Woolfe, driving his private entry 917, crashed on the first lap and was killed. Things got better, though, and for 20 hours Vic Elford and Richard Attwood led the race, amassing a 6-lap margin, but by the 21 hour mark their 917 was on the way to the dead car park with a leaking gearbox and a failed clutch. That set the stage for the most dramatic finish in LeMans history. A 908, driven by Hans Herrmann, raced virtually wheel-to-wheel for the last three hours with the JW Ford GT40 of Jacky Ickx. At the end, the 908 was just one second behind the Ford. The 917 had clearly established Porsche as the new giant of endurance racing.
Development continued nonstop. Two months later, in Austria, the 917 scored its first win, and the stage was set for total conquest in 1970.
...More on the creation of the Porsche 917
