AUTOMOBILSPORT #26

RACING | HISTORY | PASSION

ISSUE #26

IN STORES AROUND EUROPE SINCE 10/09/2020
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COVER STORY

Mirage sports car racing 1967–1982

From the Ford GT40 to the Mirage – 1967 and 1969: J. W. Automotive Engineering – M1 to the M5
Winning at La Sarthe – 1972–1975: Mirage M6, Gulf GR7 and GR8
From Arizona to Le Mans – 1976–1979: Mirage M8, M9, M10
A final attempt in Group C – 1982: Mirage M12

From The Ford GT40 To The Mirage

1967 and 1969: J. W. Automotive Engineering – M1 to the M5

In 1966 Ford finally achieved its goal of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans. While the brand’s works engagement continued in 1967, a restructuring was inevitable, not least for financial reasons. Internally, there was criticism of the costly racing programme. This reorganisation had an immediate affect on John Wyer and his team – but Wyer found a way to start an independent programme with cars based on the proven Ford GT40.

John Wyer, the long-time manager of the Aston Martin works team, celebrated his first Le Mans success in 1959 with Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby in a DBR1. His connection to Shelby then led to Wyer being involved in Ford’s racing programme from 1963. He was in charge of Ford Advanced Vehicles, but suffered heavy defeats to the all-conquering Ferrari outfit in 1964 and 1965.

From 1966 onwards Shelby took over Ford’s racing activities through Shelby American and Holman & Moody. After the one-two-three at Le Mans in 1966, Don Frey, one of Ford’s vice presidents, told Wyer that FAV was closing down. However, the conversation ended in a new cooperation. Wyer and business partner John Willment founded J. W. Automotive Engineering and took over the complete FAV inventory. There was also a lucrative deal to provide service and maintenance to customer teams running GT40s. The three-year deal was a win-win; it was considerably cheaper for Ford than keeping FAV up and running, and at the same time gave Wyer the financial and technical basis to found his own company. Willment was no stranger to motorsport, either. He had built a Cobra coupé parallel to Shelby’s, the Willment Cobra Daytona with the chassis number CSX 2131. He also tipped in £30,000 to take a 49 per cent stake in the new endeavour…

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by Thomas Nehlert

Photographs: Motorsportimages, Sammlung Robert Weber/Toni Temburg, Sammlung Robert Weber/Helmut Wenz, McKlein, Kräling, Nils Ruwisch

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Winning At La Sarthe

1972–1975: Mirage M6, Gulf GR7 and GR8

After winning two world championships with Porsche, John Wyer and his team returned to building their own cars from the beginning of the three-litre era in 1972, competing under the names Mirage and later Gulf. The highlight was a Le Mans win in 1975.

In 1970 and 1971 endurance racing was dominated by the Porsche 917 and 908/3. John Wyer’s Gulf team entered two cars in each race and amassed no fewer than 13 outright wins across the two seasons with the factory Porsches. When the Porsche deal ended after the ’71 season, as per the contract, Wyer had to think about a new car for the 1972 World Championship for Makes campaign. Meanwhile, the regulations had changed again: the powerful five-litre cars were no longer permitted, with three-litre prototypes becoming the top class.

The structure of the team changed, too. John Wyer Automotive Engineering Limited (JWAE) became Gulf Research Racing Company Limited (GRRC). Wyer partially withdrew from the business, Horsman taking over as managing director while continuing his engineer and team manager roles. Among the five other directors were Wyer and Grady Davis. The company was still based at 714 Banbury Avenue in Slough. Alan Hearn was promoted to chief mechanic after Ermanno Cuoghi and David Yorke departed the team. Cuoghi would go on to have a remarkable career with Ferrari, whereas Yorke enjoyed less success with the Martini-backed Tecno Formula 1 project…

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by Thomas Nehlert

Photographs: Motorsportimages, Michael Keyser, Nils Ruwisch, McKlein, Ford, Kräling, Sammlung Robert Weber/Wolfgang Siebert

From Arizona To Le Mans

1976–1979: Mirage M8, M9, M10

At the end of 1975, John Wyer retired and sponsor Gulf pulled out. But it wasn’t the end of the Mirage story. American lawyer and Ferrari dealer Harley Cluxton III took over the team and had new prototypes built based on the Gulf GR8 for Le Mans – marking a return of the Mirage name.

After the end of the Gulf Research Racing Company, the two Gulf GR8s were put up for sale, but at first nobody was interested in paying the asking price. Harley Cluxton III from Phoenix had bought a GR7 in 1975, and was now interested in the GR8s, which had been left in Maurice Gomm’s hands in Old Woking. In March 1976 the parties agreed on a price and Cluxton became the new owner of the cars and spares. John Horsman was hired to prepare the renamed Mirage M8s for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He put together a team made up mostly of his former employees.

1976: A new start in the USA

Cluxton talked Anthony Bamford, owner of construction machinery manufacturer J. C. Bamford Company, into sponsoring the Mirage programme. Total Oil and Goodyear were also on board. The team was named after Cluxton’s Phoenix-based Ferrari dealership – ‘Grand Touring Cars’. Four drivers were signed for Le Mans: Derek Bell, Vern Schuppan, François Migault and Jean-Louis Lafosse. A short testing programme took place at Silverstone on 25 May, and then it was off to Le Mans. Wyer, who was enjoying his retirement in the South of France, returned to help out with timekeeping. The Cosworth engines were tuned closer to Formula 1 specification, only limited to 9,000 rpm for the sake of reliability.

The competition at Le Mans was considerably stronger in 1976 than it had been the year before. The works Porsches and Renaults were regarded as the favourites. Jacky Ickx and Gijs van Lennep won in their Porsche 936, as the Renaults battled with technical issues. The two GTC Mirages put in a respectable performance. The 400-odd horsepower weren’t enough to compete with the Porsches and Renaults on speed, but the cars were reliable. Lafosse/Migault finished second, despite Lafosse defying an order to pit late in the race after his car’s rear bodywork flew off at speed. It took several requests from Horsman before he relented, the ordeal costing the car time to the leaders. Bell/Schuppan came home fifth…

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by Thomas Nehlert

Photographs: Kräling, McKlein, Renault, Motorsportimages

Aiming For The Top

Le Mans ’66: The success of the Porsche 906 LH — Part 2

Hot, sunny weather shone down on Nuremberg on the 28^th of June in 1970. As usual, perfect conditions for the annual Norisring event. The highlight of the weekend were the 200 Miles of Nuremberg, which featured two important debuts. One was the first race of the newly-created Interserie for two-seater sports cars meeting regulations for Groups 5 to 7. The other was a brand-new Group 7 racer, which turned its first competitive laps on the famous German street circuit.

What do you do when you’ve signed a world-class driver but can’t afford to pay him the agreed salary? Well, 50 years ago the solution was to build him a car he could race, and therefore earn money with, elsewhere. That’s precisely what happened with new manufacturer March, only formed in 1969, and its works driver Chris Amon in 1970. Thanks to the promise of a princely wage, March founders Robin Herd and Max Mosley had lured the 26-year-old Kiwi from Ferrari to drive the March 701 in Formula 1. Amon was at the time acknowledged as one of the best F1 drivers in the world, despite having famously never won a Grand Prix. As it would turn out, he never would.

What Herd and Mosley didn’t know was how they were going to raise the money to pay Amon. When his salary was due and the cash wasn’t there, March offered to instead build Amon a sports car that he could use in the lucrative Can-Am series in North America to earn some prize money. The New Zealander liked the offer, sensing it could be the first step toward his own Amon Racing squad in the future…

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by Harold Schwarz

Photographs: Motorsportimages, McKlein, Sammlung Robert Weber/Helmut Wenz, Ferdi Kräling, Nils Ruwisch, Lionel Birnbom

World Class

The Ford Escort RS Cosworth in rallying

Ford built the Escort RS Cosworth with the aim of winning the World Rally Championship. Although the car never achieved that goal, it did score eight WRC wins between 1993 and 1996 in Group A, plus two more in 1997 in ‘Escort WRC’ spec.

Before the World Rally Championship was created in 1973, Ford Europe had enjoyed some notable successes in rallying with their Escort Mk1. These included victory on the 1970 World Cup (London to Mexico Rally) where the Escorts were powered by a simpler pushrod version of their ubiquitous Kent engine. Next, now powered by the Cosworth BDA version engine, they won the East African Safari Rally in 1972. Ford continued to enter the Escort Mk2 once it was introduced in 1974, but had to wait until 1979 to win the WRC manufacturers’ title.

Knowing that Group B would be introduced for the WRC in 1983, Ford abandoned their mainstream rally programme to develop a car to the new regulations. This was the RS1700T with two-wheel drive and a turbocharged engine. Before that programme could come to fruition, it was eclipsed by the arrival on the rally scene of several highly competitive four-wheel-drive cars, also with turbocharged engines. Ford immediately set about matching them with a radical new design having both those features, the RS200. Good though that was, it only completed part of one season before the FIA cancelled Group B and moved the WRC to Group A regulations.

Ford did have a car for the new rules, the Sierra 4x4 powered by the Cologne V6, but with only a normally-aspirated engine, it was never going to be fully competitive. It was quickly replaced by the Sierra RS Cosworth which had the essential turbo, but no four-wheel drive. Eventually, the Sierra Cosworth 4x4 arrived on the scene in 1990 with both features now considered de rigueur for any successful rally car. It made its first sorties as a works-entered car under the management of Peter Ashcroft during the 1990 WRC season, followed by two full seasons with François Delecour driving. In 1992 the Frenchman was joined by Miki Biasion. To start with, the car had mechanical reliability problems, and 1992 with Colin Dobinson as team manager was its best season, with second places in Portugal and Corsica…

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by Thomas Nehlert

Photographs: Porsche, Alexander Babic, Motorsportimages