Wind the clock back 50 years with this classic
Take a look at the picture that’s part of this column today. There are four men in it, and each of them is important, but the prize is the car. It is a gem. It is a 1966 Ford GT40 and was a support car for the famous Comstock Racing Team of the day. It’s been completely restored by the Legendary Motorcar Company of Halton Hills and will be on display Monday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park during the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame’s Celebration of Speed 2016.
It will also do a few demonstration laps but they will be very slow demonstration laps because that car is worth a lot of money — repeat: a lot — and the last thing anybody wants to do is scratch it, never mind anything more serious.
I will tell you more about the car in a moment, but here is information about the Celebration of Speed.
Monday, which is Simcoe Day (we used to call it Civic Holiday, remember?), the Hall of Fame will hold its sixth annual track day and ridealong program on the CTMP Grand Prix circuit. It’s open to everybody — 10 years of age and older are eligible — and enthusiasts will be able to experience a ride of their lives with professional racing drivers like Ron Fellows and Ludwig Heimrath (who’s still truckin’).
A donation of $25 will get you three laps at speed; $60 will get you nine laps. Race cars and road cars can participate for $325/car. All proceeds will go to help support the Canadian Motorsport Heritage Foundation, which operates the Hall of Fame.
So I was talking about this car the other day with Paul Cooke (he’s the fellow at left in the photo). He has intimate knowledge of this particular GT40 because he managed that Comstock team and kept the car at home in his garage from time-to-time. The most-famous Com- stock racing driver was Canadian champion Eppie Wietzes of Toronto (far right in the photo) and he went with Cooke to Legendary Motorcar’s showroom to view the car that had been restored under the direction of company owner Peter Klutt (second from right) and his son Ryan (to Cooke’s left).
“When Eppie and I viewed the car at Legendary, it was like winding the clock back 50 years,” Cooke said. “What a great experience! They have some of the best craftsmen in the world there and the job they did on the GT40 is just astounding.”
Cooke explained that the Comstock team had two GT40 race cars and two road cars.
“In those days, in order to homologate a car to run at Le Mans, for example, a manufacturer had to build 50 cars,” he said. “Ford didn’t need 50 race cars. So they built enough cars to satisfy the racing needs and then the balance of the 50 became PR cars.”
Some people and companies are miles ahead of the competition when it comes to getting publicity. Race driver Eddie Sachs, for instance, wasn’t all that good early in his career, but he got way more “ink” than his 1950s contemporaries because he used to carry around a bottle of liquor in the trunk of his street car. After the races, he’d pour the sportswriters a drink and they’d write him up. Cooke suggested Ford had similar instincts.
“One of the reasons for the enormous popularity of the GT40, besides its beauty, was that it was made available to reporters who would help publicize the Ford brand,” Cooke said.
“At Comstock, when we were racing, we took one of the road cars on a separate trailer and I would go out a couple of days in advance of events and hold a media day. That just enhanced the Ford program like you wouldn’t believe. Considering that sort of thing was done 50 years ago, Ford was way ahead of the curve.”
Cooke said he wasn’t as far advanced as the company. In fact, he passed up a glorious opportunity to purchase one of the race cars. “When we wound up the Comstock team, Ford wanted to keep one of the cars for a year to use at various trade shows. I said, ‘When you’re finished with it, I have first dibs on it,’ and they said okay. Two years later (in 1968), when I was deep, deep, deep into McLarens with George Eaton and Roger McCaig (he managed their Formula A and Can-Am Series teams), Ford called and said they were finished with the car. They said they would let me have it for $2,263. It’s peanuts today but, at that time, it was a lot of money. I took a pass.”
Mr. Cooke and I then concluded our conversation by commiserating over lost opportunities with automobiles (him) and real estate (me). We agreed that if we had both been a little smarter, we would have been retired in Palm Springs today. I hope to see you at CTMP Monday. It’s first-come, first-served for ride-alongs so don’t dawdle.