John Etheridge - Motorsport Magazine Dec 1975 - An archive article on maintaining GT40s

[JimmyMac]

Interesting if you haven't seen it before.
Click on the right hand side pages to view the pictures.

Rejuvenating GT40s - Motor Sport Magazine

An ex-J.W.A. mechanic secures the future of these covetable Fords. Production of the Ford GT40 ceased in the late 1960s, by which time this successful sports/racing car had established itself as a classic in its time, an appreciating collector’s item for the future. It epitomised the ’60s much...

www.motorsportmagazine.com

 

[Paul Hendrickx]

Hello,
one always learn something on these kind of articles which by the way are a pleasure to read...
thanks
Paul

 

[JimmyMac]

My mate Alistair and I bought a lot of parts from John when he retired, we saw an advert in a magazine and got there first for our pick of everything.
The bulk of Alistair's car parts are original GT40 and from that stock.

 

[Brian Kissel]

And sadly on the same page, announces his obituary in July of 2014. Fantastic read.
THANKS for posting.

Regards Brian

 

[steve]

Thank you for posting.
Q- were Etheridge’s builds given sequential “P” numbers? and, wasn’t this about the time of the Safir cars?
R/S
Steve

 

[Stephen Ducker]

Hi,
1) As regards chassis numbers, GT40P/1xxx numbers were assigned to some spare & partially built chassis's after production ended. For example, although Mk111 production ended with car 1107, one of the spare Mk111 chassis that I'm familiar with was given the number 1109 & is now racing as a dark blue Mk1.

2) No, the Safir car came after the 1970's. The first Safir Engineering GT40 MkV was completed in early 1981. (Note, That was Safir Engineering, Surrey, England, as opposed to the current company 'Safir GT40 Spares, Cincinnati, Ohio')
Another note; John Etheridge was eventually employed by Peter Thorp, owner of Safir Engineering to manage the MkV builds at Safir Eng..

When Safir Engineering began the MkV project they did this in agreement with John Willment, thus the MkV's are all numbered in the traditional way, the first MkV car being GT40P/1090.

Hope this helps. Steve