Ford GT40 chassis number GT40 P/1027 :
General info:
The first car was named the GT (for Grand Touring) with the 40 representing its overall height of 40 inches (1.02 m, measured at the windshield) as required by the rules. Large displacement Ford V8 engines (4.7 liter and 7 liter) were used, compared with the Ferrari V12 which displaced 3.0 liter or 4.0 liter.
After chassis GT-112 the “production” began and the subsequent cars, the MkI, MkIIs, MkIIIs, and MkIVs, numbered GT40P/1000 through GT40P/1145, were officially “GT40s”
GT40 P/1027 Race results:
None
GT40 P/1027 History:
As delivered in 1966 : Belgian Racing Yellow – configuration was as a race car for the 02/66 : Brussels Motor Show – C. Sechan (USA), toensing (USA) –
Chassis GT40 P/1027 was used as a camera car by MGM for the movie Grand Prix filmed on location in Monico.
Some time in 1966 the car was sold to Charles Sechan in Prospect Pennsylvania.
In feburary 1968 it was sold to Jim Toensing in Minneapolis who moved to Newport Beach CA.
Briggs Cunningham Museum, California – 1987 : Ladwig – 1993 : Meadow
Book Concours d’Elegance 1st – 1999 : Monterey auction
GT40 P/1027 Photos:
no photos yet
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Chassis GT40 P/1027 race results are from classicscars.com
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I have the original Ford Motor Company press release of the GT40.
Would I be able to get a copy of that documentation?
If you would like more of the story on the car as far as what happened to the motor coming out in Minneapolis,MN in 68 we have the original Valve covers and running motor. If you would like to add this info to the website contact me for more info in detail. The motor still remains in Minnesota in 65 fastback mustang.
Hi this is very interesting. Do you know if the motor is still in the mustang and who has it. I’d love to see what that looks like.
Currently (Sept 2018) for sale:
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/ford/gt-40/1965/558575
I grew up on Upton Ave, a few doors down from Jim Toensing’s home and this fabled car.
As a 13 or 14 year old kid, Jim tollerated me coming by and asking him all kinds of stupid questions. He drove this thing with the custom engineered, injected 427, through our neighborhood. I believe I met Dean Jefferis, his collaborator back in the day. I may have photos of this in my archives somewhere!
Jim was a Mechanical Engineer, worked for Remmele Engineering, an Aerospace company, that 30 years later that I, also then a Mechanical Engineer would work with on precision optical tooling.
I spoke with Jim in 2003 at his retirement home in AZ. Our careers had followed a similar arc, but sadly, I never owned a GT40!
According to “The Complete Ford Book #3″(Petersen, 1973) 1027 was the coupe that had the Ford 4-cam Indy motor installed. Is this still true, or has it been returned to it’s original configuration? If so, when, & by whom?
The 255 cu in Ford 4-cam Indy motor swap into 1027 is documented in an article in “Petersen’s Complete Ford Book #3”, written by the car’s owner Jim Toensing, & appears on pages 136 through 141. the book has a Library of Congress Catalog Card #73-85953 & also ISBN 0-8227-0025-5. Has this vehicle been returned to the original motor? If it has not what, is it’s current disposition?
I met Jim while he was machining turbo impellers in the shop of the Briggs Cunningham Museum.
He did not tolerate everyone but he realized I had an interest in the setup he had on the Bridgeport Mill.
He was machining different impellers to try different boost rates on what I remember as the two turbochargers on the GT40.
He would try different boost rates and one time he took me for ( sadly ) a short ride in the GT40.
He let me take home a one of a kind single cylinder engine he had built that allowed you to change the ignition timing,
Valve timing and the compression ratio while the engine was running. This was a very complex engine that used 2 two stroke pistons moving up and down in there cylinders as intake and an exhaust valves.
There timing and length of stroke could be changed thus creating a smaller or larger combustion chamber.
Chris Hirtler worked for Briggs Cunningham ( Mr C ) and his mother Joyce Cox was Mr C’s secretary and the receptionist in the lobby at the museum. He currently lives in Huntington Beach, Ca. and is a friend of mine.
He does have a picture of Jim’s car taken in the museum. this picture shows the car with no turbochargers.
It has Borrani Wire Wheels, a fuel injected four cam engine with black exhaust pipes in the middle of the engine and the injection stacks between the cams. He does not remember the car ever having turbochargers.
We owe Jim thanks because he helped develop production methods that made color TVs cheap enough for the general public. His royalties from this funded his projects.
The current pictures I see of Chassis P-1027 do not match Jim’s car when it was at the museum.
It would be nice to find out who changed the engine back to a push-rod engine and changed the wheels?
When Jim Ladwig owned the car, we received it with the 4 cam Indy motor and replaced it with a 289. I don’t remember the year exactly, (’80s sometime) but we also installed fuel cells at the time. I was told the original motor had been lost. The wheels had already been changed.