WYER FIGURE

HOW A STIFF, HUMORLESS MAN AND HIS SMALL TEAM BEAT THE GIANTS OF MOTORSPORT. IT ALL BEGAN THE DAY AFTER HE WAS FIRED.

- RAPHAEL ORLOVE

ON JUNE 19, 1966, Henry Ford II watched intently as his GT40s swept the podium at Le Mans. On the last day of that same year, Ford paid severance to a tall, stiff man named John Wyer and his entire staff at Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough, England—the British team that developed the GT40.

Initially, Ford hired Wyer to run its whole GT40 operation. All of those fresh beginnings, the fragile early cars that blew transmissions, were built, maintained, and campaigned under Wyer’s stern gaze. After all, Ford was new to endurance racing, and Wyer was not. When Carroll Shelby celebrated his win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959 as a driver, wearing striped overalls and guzzling champagne, it was Wyer who’d led and managed that Aston Martin team. Wyer was patient, exacting, and precise, and he knew that 1964, the GT40’s first full racing season, would be a learning experience.

Ford executives didn’t share his patience. Having watched in agony as Ferrari clobbered the 4.7-liter Mk I at its first Le Mans, Ford yanked GT40 development back home to America. The ensuing 1965 season didn’t make Ford’s decision look wise, as Ferrari walked all over the reorganized team. Hell, at the Nürburgring, a puny 1.6-liter Ferrari beat Ford’s 7.0-liter GT40. Ford answered the only way it knew how: by nearly doubling its already massive budget. The Americans poured some $7 million into the campaign, securing no less than 13 entries for that famous ’66 Le Mans. Only three GT40s finished, but they came in first, second, and third. Ford renewed that budget for 1967 with the NASA-esque Mk IV and won again.