P/1108 for sale/sold (good detail photos)

[Jim Rosenthal]

I wish I could say I remember it, but I don't. I do remember hanging out with you guys, but I don't recall the car.

I was just struck by the routing of the water pipes in the front, you see it when the bodywork is off the car, the pipes seem to go out to the sides, I think. And I thought Mark IIIs had the water pipe routing in the sponsons. I am going to have to woodshed all this stuff and see if I am dreaming.

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

I just noticed the dual areas for the windscreen wiper shaft. It must have been LHD to begin with, just as you said above. The car has the old style brakes, too, I think, and rubber hoses, unless I can't see them clearly enough.

At some point it must have been a Mark III, then, because there weren't any other LHD GT40s, were there?

 

[Michael Holmes]

I stand corrected, Ronnie Spain's book confims what each of you have said, bare MKlll chassis, lft hand drive.

 

[dick]

Jim,
I think you'll find that mk3 water pipes pass over the lower wishbones and behind shock absorbers, and then pass back into the interior cabin area, but not the fuel sponsons, and then pass down the sides of the seats on the inside of the fuel sponsons. If you look carefully at the pictures of 1103 in its thread, they can be clearly seen. I notice that 1108 here does have its mk3 removable front access panel.

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

Yes; I haven't seen a Mk III up close for a while, but I don't doubt what you just pointed out. And I think the LHD ones had the shift mechanism in the center tunnel, which probably didn't work all that well, and took up room that the water pipes would occupy in a Mark I or Mark II car.

What's interesting about this to me is that for quite a while, the only way to build a mid-engine car was to put the engine and driveline in the back, and the radiator in the front, and pipe the water back and forth as GT40s, Miuras, Boxers, 308s, 328s, etc all do. The first performance car which did it another way, as far as I know, was the Testarossa- they put all the radiators in the back, which meant all the waste heat from the engine and coolant stayed out behind the driver, and also meant that the AC worked a great deal better. If I were to make only one structural change in the way my GT40 is set up, I would find a way to relocated the cooling system to the rear of the car. There would be a great deal less cockpit heat that way.