A Kiwi Le Mans legend brought back from the past

17 December, 2014

 

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Recreating a Kiwi Le Mans legend is no minor feat and Grant Aitken explains the reasoning behind why he took on the challenge

Some five years ago, in a discussion with a significant New Zealand motorsport personality, the topic of the original 1966 Le Mans-winning Ford GT40, as driven to victory by Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren came up. The person involved in the discussion was adamant that the original car was stored in a garage in Tauranga although, personally, I had my doubts as I believed that the value of the original vehicle would be beyond the resources of most Kiwis.

A fruitless search resulted in me making contact with a known previous owner of the original car, a certain George Stauffer — a globally recognized race car restorer. I tracked him down and boldly rang him. He told me that he had in fact owned the original car (chassis 1046), and restored it to its original 1966 livery. 

Further to confirming his ownership, he also advised me that he’d recently sold it to a New York collector for a modest US$16 million. However, he told me that if the notion of building a clone of the original interested me, I should talk to Lee Holman, as he still had some of the original parts that made up the MKII GT40.

I commissioned manufacturer Holman Moody to build a replica of #1046. The body shell was sourced from a recognized current replica builder in South Africa and shipped to Holman Moody in Charlotte, North Carolina in the US.

Eighteen months went by and the car was completed with a dry-sump 427 FE engine, built but the original engine builder, Jimmy Tucker. The car features the correct T44 transmission, period-correct gauges, seats, interior, and luggage compartments. It is believe to be the closest reproduction of the original car in existence. 

During the build, Chris Amon’s assistance was invaluable, with his supplying of pictures of the original car, including dashboard layout among other things.


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The car was completed in 2012 and shipped to New Zealand, where on December 10, 2014 Chris Amon was introduced to the car. We drove several laps of the Taupo Motorsport Park circuit and Chris was quite emotional about the visit to the past, speaking very highly of the car.

I am delighted to have reconstructed a car to commemorate one of New Zealand’s greatest sporting victories — one that has gone largely unnoticed in New Zealand. However, I want to ensure that the upcoming 50th anniversary of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon’s win — the first ever for a Ford at Le Mans — is celebrated and given the recognition it deserves.

The gallery below has been captured by Graham Sword.

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.