Thanks Howard!
Steve McQueen was and remains one of my favorite actor and person. In my early to late teenage days, I would often see him getting a sandwich at the local heath eatery shop between Palm Springs proper, and Palm Desert. He often frequented Mama Banducci's Italian Resturante along Palm Canyon. In the day, you could sit out front of that resturant, and watch everyone cruise Palm Canyon. I was envious of him when he hooked up with Ali MacGraw - what a cutie she was. They were only married for one year during 1980, strangely. I didn't have a photo of him in a Gulf Car jump suit until you just sent me one. I'll add that for when I post this composition again.
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I did wonder quite a bit why he elected to produce a race car film subsequent to the GT40 era. I think he missed the boat there. I also found it amazing that he leased car p1074, and then he tore the roof off to make it a camera car. He said he needed a car that could keep up with the race cars. 1. I'm amazed he leased it. 2. I'm more amazed that the owner of the car allowed him to tear the roof off. I'm even more amazed what it must have cost in an attempt to rebuild the car, especially knowing that the saved the light weight parts from the Mirage, but didn't or couldn't reinstall them ??? At the auction in 2011 when the car sold for $11M, even though they were only expecting $5M, they said it included the Mirage parts!
NOTES FROM MY WEB SITE:
"With its former driver, Jacky Ickx behind the wheel of a Ferrari 512S at the filming of the 1070 24 Hours of Le Mans race, the P/1074 participated as a film car with two cameras located in the spare tire well and a gyroscopically-stabilized, air-powered, 180-degree Arriflex camera mounted in the rear deck and controlled inside the cockpit by remote control. Another 35 mm camera was mounted above the passenger side door. The additional weight and downgraded aerodynamics from the film modifications made reaching the 150 mph top speed difficult, and required a great deal of skill to control at the triple-digit speeds."
"After the filming, the car exchanged owners and ended up with collector Sir Anthony Bamford in 1972. Under his ownership, the Ford GT40 was reconstructed by Willie Green with a new roof panel, early GT40 doors with “rocker” handles, new rear bodywork from a standard GT40 with wider wheel flares and a lack of air outlets and carbon fiber reinforcement. The P/1074 was then sold back to Harley E. Cluxton III, who had originally sold it to Bamford, and was restored once again."
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Also, SEE THIS:
GT40 p1074 Gulf Mirage
Thanks, Soulcoaxer