Xmas GT40 story

RobBeddington · 12-20-03, 06:08 AM

Heard a nice story last week.

I keep in touch with a group of friends from school (in Essex, England), mainly the same year, but a few of different ages (any excuse for beer). One of the older guys, Mark, owned a Ginetta before I could drive, and an E-Type (XKE) when I bought my first car (err - a Fiat 600 for £30). He knew this guy who worked for John Wyer's JW Automotive in Slough. Occasionally this guy was allowed to bring an original GT40 home for the weekend - some company car! As you can imagine, it impressed the girls bigtime...

One December weekend he took Mark for a spin in a MK1. Instead of heading off for open roads, he took the road from Brentwood onto the A12 - TOWARDS Romford/London. On the A12 slip road they were doing 120mph+. A very short time later they hit and passed 160mph - nothing too wild in that you may think, except that this was Saturday afternoon, peak Christmas shopping time and they were weaving between Cortinas, Minis and Hillman Imps (doing between 40 and 60mph!). Thankfully, this guy could drive, no-one died and the car was delivered safely back to JWA the following Monday.

Although this was over 30 years ago, Mark was still smiling about his only GT40 experience, as well as the (blurred?) anxious/angry faces of the elderly Xmas shoppers. Perhaps speed cameras are a good thing.

On another note. I only discovered this list a couple of months ago when I decided then that the time had come for a 40. Literally the day I registered on gt40s.com I found one. Whether I take Mark down the A12 at 160mph at peak time I'm not so sure, but I'm looking forward to this new way of life.

Seasons greetings to you all and I hope you all get the answers to your posts in 2004.

Rob

Simon · 12-21-03, 06:22 AM

I live close to the Ford headquarters in Brentwood, Essex. A few years ago (1979 to be exact) I was driving past the Ford building at about midnight when I noticed in the car park a low loader with an old ford (model t??) and a GT40 on. My friend I was with had no interest in cars but I had to have a look so drove unchallenged into the car park and got out of my car. I walked up to the low loader, climbed up, opened the door of the GT40 and looked in. Can you imagine doing that today? There was no security, no lights in the car park, Ford obviously placed little value on the cars in those days.
Twenty years later I was filming a story (I'm a TV cameraman) about GT40's, and Brian Wingfield bought two GT40's to a test track where we were filming. I realised that one of them was (probably) the car that I had seen all those years ago on the trailer (the silver MK3)
Small world huh?

RobBeddington · 12-21-03, 07:24 AM

A very small world indeed.

I lived in Brentwood between 1975 and 1981. We used to go drinking in the Thatchers Arms in Warley and a couple of evenings I saw the very same car, a silver MK III, once on a low loader (may even have been the same evening, though I don't remember the Model T) and another time in the Ford car park on its own, parked next to a brand new Capri MK III (I remember my girlfriend was more interested in the Capri, but she was from Essex...). The GT40 must be the MK III that Ford still owns (but I doubt if they still own the Capri [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ).

Rob