Mercury GT ????

[Hershal Byrd]

I was talking to a friend and he tells me that Ford raced two GT40s in the sixties but they were not called Ford GT40s.It was only at one race event. They were called Mercury Comets is what he thought.
Anybody out there ever heard of this. :smirk: :grin:
If so then what were there seriel numbers?

Hersh

 

[Bill Bayard]

Hersh,

Maybe they also raced under the guise of Ford Maverick?

Bill

 

[Graham Forbes]

Yep, absolutely right. It was at the 1967 Daytona 24 hour race. Holman & moody entered 6 Mk2 and two of them were entered as Mercury GTs. Don't know why. Possibly a marketing stunt. Don't know the chassis numbers either. There is only a brief mention of the cars along with a photo of one of them in David Hodge's 1970 book 'The Ford GT40 - Prototypes & Sports Cars. This is the little book with a profile of the '67 Le Mans winner on the cover.

 

[Hershal Byrd]

Thanks Graham,
That is interesting. Makes you wonder what was the thinking on that one. Another question, what would the title
or certificate of origin read ?

Hersh

 

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

Hersh,

P1047 was one of the "Mercury" MK IIs. This was a marketing ploy to build the Mercury performance image, remember they were going Trans-Am racing with the Cougars also. And, no, the title would not say "mercury, these were just two regular ole Fords with the Mercury painted on the sill stripes :shocked:

Rick

 

Hersh

The two Mercury MKIIB entries for the 1967 Daytona were entered by Shelby American (there were three MKIIB entries from Shelby and three from Holman & Moody - the cars were very different both inside and out, the H&M cars eating up the Daytona banking and the Shelby cars "handling like pigs". Both sets of cars had an interesting torsion bar arrangement to stop the suspension from grounding on the banking).

A nice image of the Mercury side stripes on 1047 comes from the Exoto MKII.

http://www.motorsportcollector.com/041102Images/FordMkII/03L.jpeg

If the Mercury MKIIs had performed better then who knows, we might now own Mercury GT40 replicas :grin:

As it turned out, none of the MKIIs performed well, with Ferrari taking the top 3 slots. The MKIIs got through 9 gearboxes between them, and the crew got gearbox replacement down to 15 minutes. By around 15 hours, the teams had even run out of the early stronger boxes. The headline at the time was "FORDS HUMILIATED". It shows you can't win 'em all.

Cheers :grin:

Rob

 

Forgot to mention that the other Shelby "Mercury MKIIB" at the 1967 Daytona 24hrs was the Bruce McLaren/Lucien Bianchi car #1012 (the subject of the recent "cloning" thread). This car came 7th despite suffering major overheating problems from just 2 hours into the race. It was the only MKII to finish.

Rob

 

[Jim Glickenhaus]

The car that finished First that day is in "P4 in red" thread. Small world.

 

[Hershal Byrd]

Rick and Rob,
Thanks again! As always, this place reeks of knowledge. :grin:

Hersh

 

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

Yeah,

It seems that some guy on this board had "hedged his bets" by owning both one of them Ford cars AND one of them "Furarries"

The superiority of the "Amurican" built car is obvious, only the spaghetti car needed to be rebuilt!

Imagine what they would have done to a Mercury GT in the late 70's.....Sim convert top, wide whites, cathouse velour seats and of course, the standup hood ornament! :shocked: Ain't no eye-talian can match that type of class....


Rick :crazy:

 

Rick, you forgot the vertical back window (a la Cougar v. T-bird, circa 1985) and "opera lights" on the sides of the roof!

 

[BenL]

I heard rumors of a GT40 at the NY Auto Show in 1966 on the Mercury stand. If that's true, I'd really like to see a picture of that car.