1962-1963: THE LONG WAY TO THE REVOLUTION
When John F. Kennedy was elected to president of the United States in 1960 he gave the American people the conviction that they were the most modern, most dynamic, most fantastic people on earth. He starts his program to conquer the universe and predicts prosperity for anyone, now the Korean crisis belongs definitively to the past. America is the country of rock'n roll, of jazz, of blue jeans, of Coca Cola, of television as mass product. Kennedy's America was above all young. 
Among the American automobile manufacturers Ford Motor Company has nothing of all that young and dynamic. Here General Motors is the trendsetter with its sporty Chevrolet Corsair and Chevrolet Corvette, conquering a large part of the wealthy American youth. Ford has no sporty car at all, is not popular among American youngsters. Things will change in 1962 when Lee Iacocca becomes vice-president at FoMoCo. He insists upon Henry Ford II that they need to launch a sports car on the market if they wish to follow the new modern trend Henry Ford II, however, is absolu-tely not convinced. Then Iacocca decides to align on the factory's court all Chevrolets in one row, with in front of them the models Ford has as competitors. The places in front of the Corvette and the Corsair are completely empty. Now at least, Henry Ford understands that FoMoCo has to do something to undo its arrears.
Iacocca's idea is to do what GM already does: making publicity by winning autosport races with hairy machinery derived from original street cars. "Won on Sunday, sold on Monday" should be the device. Unfortunately there are two serious obstacles.
(1) America has no long tradition in racing on road coarses, especially not on racing in the rain as is common practice overseas. American racing was too long restricted to oval racing. They have no Le Mans 24 hours. However, since 1952 they have the Sebring 12 hours going under European racing rules. And since 1962 there is also the Daytona Continental 3 hours, contested on the road track (in the infield).
(2) There is also the famous AMA-Treaty from 1957, where American automobile manufacturers agreed not to enter officially autosport. Iacocca, however, finds that GM violated the treaty by hidden sponsoring of some race teams (e.g. those of John Macom, of Augie Pabst, of Jim Hall, etc.) So he finds that FoMoCo openly can deny the 1957 contract.
Already in 1962 Ford has plans to built an own prototype - the Mustang Project - in order to conquer the Le Mans 24 hours. Towards the end of the year a project car - Mustang 1 (nothing to do with the later Mustangs) is ready. In Iococca's eyes the body can serve later as model for a true Ford prototype. Meanwhile Texas's Carroll Shelby is co-operating with A.C. Cars in England to transform their A.C. Cobra in a Ford powered racing machine.  Earlier, from 1958 to 1959 he drove F1 cars. In 1957 he tried, at no avail, to become a works driver in the Enzo Ferrari team, but the Commendatore didn't believe that a Texan peasant could be of any value for his team. It was the start of Shelby's strong hate for all what was Ferrari. In 1959 he took revenge: having entered the Aston Martin works team, he could beat all the famous Ferraris to win with Roy Salvadori as team mate the Le Mans 24 hours. In 1963 Ford supports the Shelby Cobras in competition. Results are not what was expected from the 4.2 AC Cobra Roadster: beaten at the Daytona Continental by two 3.0 GTO Ferraris and a 5.4 Corvette Grand sport; only 11th at the Sebring 12 hours (where Ferrari took the 6 first places); and a new defeat at the Le Mans 24 hours, where no Cobra reaches the finish. Eventually we have to wait the end of the season to see the Shelby Cobras winning their first race at the Bridgehampton 500 (1st and 2nd OA).

1963: IF WE CANNOT BEAT THEM, LET'S BUY THEM!
It was an idea of Lee Iacocca. What he had in mind was to have Ford involved in international racing despite the 1957 AMA-Treaty. If Ford wanted a quick start one had to buy brains, experience and facilities. And where they could find it any better than at Ferraris, winning time by time. After the defeat of the Shelby Cobras at Sebring 1963, Henri Ford II approached Enzo Ferrari in May with the idea of forming two companies out of a merger: (a) Ford-Ferrari with Ford as major stock holder, being created to sell the kind of luxurious sports and GT-cars Ferrari already was building, and (2) Ferrari-Ford as a racing company with Ferrari as majority stock holder, running all racing activities. Ford wanted also the option to purchase Ferrari's equity in this company upon the Commendatore's death. Ford sent over Donald Frey, its Division's general manager, to Maranello, together with a team that included an assets-determination specialist, a manufacturing expert and two lawyers. Proposals thus came after the construction of the GT40 by Eric Broadley, the British father of the Lola Mk6 GT, already was started. When Europe learns by the end of 1965 that the offer was made in the very period where Ferrari had financial troubles, and that an absolutely ridiculous price of $ 10,000,000 US was offered, indignation is general in the European press. Although Frey let understand that Ferrari was interested in the deal, its simply unthinkable that such libertarian spirit as Enzo Ferrari could take the offer one moment seriously. Ferrari was in those days a monument in Italy, part of the common proud of the nation. There are stories telling how the government, the Agnelli Bros and even the pope should have intervened to prevent that Ferrari accepted the deal.
Until mid-1965, just before the articles in the press, public attendance at the rounds of FISA's Manufacturers World Championship was higher than in the days that Ford was no contender. But as soon as the press reported that Ford tried to buy out its most direct concurrent, there was a highly emotional turning point. The European press interpreted Ford's merger proposition as an attempt of colonisation. Estimating that poor Enzo was threatened in his independence hundreds of thousands of European enthusiasts found that they should support Ferrari openly. So, at once public attendance explodes: they are 250,000 at Monza, 300,000 at the Targa Florio, 70,000 at Spa, 380,000 at the Nürburgring, nearly 400,000 at Le Mans. For them all Ford declared war to a European monument: Ferrari. That war, Europe had to win. They are all there: the Agnelli Bros, the political leaders, the European press, the tifosi, the Mafiosi, the mothers and the grandfathers. Even the pope is there, blessing with holy water the celestial cars and praying the Good Lord that he made prevent they should be beaten by a foreign invader: an enemy. Ferrari is at once an institution, a sanctuary. Ferrari just may not loose. It has to prove that there is no technology like European. No post-colonials to invade the holy European soil.

1963-1964: WORKING ON TWO DIFFERENT LEVELS
By the end of 1963 the first version of the Ford GT40 prototype was finished, however not ready for the first road tests. Up to then only motoring enthusiasts were aware of Ford's ambitions to win Le Mans and the Manufacturer's World Championship.
To win the last named championship, reserved for GT cars, Carroll Shelby worked on a closed version of his Shelby Cobra Roadster. The body was made in California and is ready by January 1964. Initially engineer Phil Remington believes that "the strange car" can never win. A specialist in aerodynamics, Benny Howard, even contacts Shelby, confirming him that such body can never function well. But Pete Brock - one of Shelby's young guys, the father of the new body - convinces Remington to wait the test of the new body on February 1, 1964, at Riverside. Ken Miles, Shelby's n°1 test driver, realises splendid performances with the new car, going 24 kph faster than with the Roadster and reducing the fuel consumption by 25 per cent. The results are so good that Shelby decides to enter the new car on February 16 at the Daytona 2000-kms. So the car becomes the 4.7 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe.
To win Le Mans more is needed than a GT car, like Shelby's. A long series of tests is done with Broadley's Lola GT Mk6, but mainly on the aluminium 4.2-litre Ford Indy motor, on the suspension and on the cooling. Mid-1963 FoMoCo decides that the Broadway ateliers at Bromley (GB) are too small. They thus let build a new factory at Slough, near to the London Heathrow airport. The building is ready by the Autumn and will host Ford's new company, specially created for the Ford GT project: Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV). They "buy by August 1, 1963 Eric Broadley who, up from now has exclusively to work on the Ford GT Project. He has to co-operate with the American engineer Roy Lunn. As race-director FAV offers John Wyer a contract for 1964. For the moment he's still race director at David Brown's Aston Martin, but since they are in serious financial problems, he accepts the offer from Detroit. Moreover he can bring with him such excellent drivers as Phil Hill, Roy Salvadori, Jo Schlesser - now still at Aston - in Ford's works team.  
By the start of 1964 the Ford GT prototype has been tested no less than 76 times in the wind tunnel of the Maryland University. The body has only the rear and the sharp nose in common with the Mustang I and is obviously much more inspired by that of the Lola GT. Gene Bordinat designed the eventual body. Announced to make its debut at the Sebring 12 hours, the car is not ready at all. Worse, it has raced even not an inch! Meanwhile Eric Broadley is seriously in the clinch with Roy Lunn who opts for a heavy steel chassis, whilst Broadley defends a modern aluminium chassis. The controversy among the two goes so far that they are no longer on speaking terms. Tha announced ZF gear box is not ready so that Lunn opts for the Colotti one. One has to wait April 1 before the two first cars are ready. Instead of testing them immediately they are flown over from London to New York for a series of publicity pictures at the Automobile Show. Wyer has to wait that the car comes back to London before he can start a series of tests at MIRA's track. It's April !, and the Le Mans Test Day is within 10 days. Just before shipping the "101" is tested at Silverstone.

1964 A NEW ERA IN FISA ENDURANCE RACING
The venue of Ford in European endurance racing must be seen as a clash between two complete different approaches to build race cars. It is the fight of European pragmatism , based upon several years long racing experience, against American high-techs, based upon profound computer analyses and inventive engineering. Since one can not stop the future, even not if your name is Enzo Ferrari, even not if you built the winningest cars of history, the issue of this fight can - in the long run - be forecasted: Ford will win this fight sooner or later.

For the non-initiated public, Ford's official entry in autosport is considered as a threat for stable values. Public only sees a small arts and craft firm (Ferrari) threatened by THE giant among the giants, by America's Ford. This total new situation is presented by the European sports press as the fight of David (Ferrari with only 400 workers) against Goliath (Ford with 400,000 workers worldwide). Of course, all this is sentimental exaggeration. Behind Ferrari we find Fiat, the Agnelli Bros, if necessary the whole Italian state. So, the financial forces are much more equal, than the European press lets believe. Enzo Ferrari himself is rather charmed than impressed by the venue of Ford. For him it's a honour that the one but biggest automobile manufacturer does such tremendous financial efforts in order to beat his own red cars.

1964: ENZO FERRARI'S BIG MISTAKE
Not anyone in Europe is behind Ferrari. One has not to forget that 20 years after the war, Americans are seen as the great liberators of Europe. So, Ford has surely its supporters on the Old Continent, but nearly not among the youngsters. Ford's barnum publicity makes that all at once - now that television becomes widely spread in Europe - people, before never interested in autosport, begin to follow the combat, discovering at once a world of passion. Even brave family fathers and their wives, not able to distinguish the front engined Maserati Tipo 151/3 from the rear engined Abarth-Simca 1300, are massively behind Ferrari. A real legend is born. Autosport magazines spring up like mushrooms. At the Nürburgring - Ford's first race in Europe - no less than 650,000 people are crowd rounding each other, just to see a glimpse of that fantastic American computer car.
The venue of Ford on the two scenes - the GT Manufacturers World Championship with the new Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe (and the older Shelby Daytona Roadster), and the Prototypes World Championship (with the Ford GT40) - results in a radical change in the behaviour of the FISA officials. Last year the British delegation criticized the waggishness of FISA's Manufacturers World Championship. Now that Ford is in, there is no more place for the typical French frivolity. Here, even before the first martial exploit on the circuits, Ferrari has to take a first beating. In the past Maranello was always a champion to let register cars, manufactured at only one or two dozens, just as if they existed at the necessary 100 copies. Starting the 1964 season it was commonly believed that the homologation of the new 3.0 Ferrari 250 LM could never be a problem. In 1962 FISA homologated the 250 GTO too, despite the fact that only26 copies of that car were manufactured during the same year. And did John Wyer (now at Ford!) not exactly the same with the Aston Martin DB214, existing at only ...2 copies? But now the American giant entered the scene, FISA officials, all at once, and despite their old age, have better eyes. No question to homologate the Ferrari 250 LM, directly derived from the 250P prototype, not from a street car Il Commendatore is furious, threading FISA's old lords to retire all his cars. However, nothing helps. The old lords are not changing their minds.
The lonely solution for Ferrari - nothing more than an emergency improvisation - has to come from an aerodynamically improved 250 GTO. In a hurry Maranello releases a tunnel-back-roof version of the old GTO. In February the first 3.0 Ferrari 250 GTO-64 is ready, and immediately shipped to Luigi Chinetti, to let it be raced at the Daytona 2000-kms(no longer a 3 hour race this year, since Ford wishes more experience in road racing before going to Le Mans). Two new 250 GTO-64 are immediately built, whilst 4 250 GTO-62 will receive the new body (some of them without the tunnel-back-roof).

1964: FISA'S MANUFACTURERS WORLDS WITH NEW RULES
The arrival of such important challenger as FoMoCo at their championship makes the grey nobles of the FISA feeling themselves twice as important as before. They understand that their decisions are at once far reaching. Now that Ford entered the FISA Manufacturers World Championship, it's not impossible that Mercedes will come back, that GM will follow. The French descendants of both Louis XIV and Napoleon I, accept - not without grumbling and growling - to modify some of the championship's principles.
(1) Already mid-November 1963 FISA announces that the scoring coefficients of the several rounds of the Manufacturers World Championship have been revisited. Le Mans - before quote 3 - receives the highest coefficient, now 2. Sebring, the Targa Florio, the ADAC Nürburgring 1000-kms, the Tour de France and the Paris 1000-kms have a degree of importance of 1.6. Other circuit events are at 1.3, except if they are new on the calendar. Then they receive, just as the hill-climbs, a coefficient 1.
(2) The championship will go over 20 rounds instead of 22 last year. Rounds as the Sebring 3 hours, Trophées d'Auvergne, the Wiesbaden Rally, the Ollon-Villars Hill-Climb and the Monza GT Grand Prix are stuck out. New on the calendar are the Reims 12 hours, Paris 1000-kms and the Messina Grand Prix.
(3) At the November meeting they decided that there will be four world champions in 19864: one for GT cars over 3,000 cc (Div3), one for GT cars of 1,301-2,000 cc (Div2), one for GT-cars up to 1,300 cc (Div1) and one for prototypes (P).
(4) Number of rounds is restricted to 7 for P prototypes, to 14 for Div3 and Div2, and to 9 for Div1. In the two highest classes only the seven best results may be considered at the end of the season. In the lowest class (Div I) that is restricted to six results.
(5) No cylinder-capacity distinction is made for P cars. Their championship is officially called the International Prototypes Trophy for Manufacturers.

¶2. Survey of the Cars involved in the 1964 FISA World Championship

click here

1964: MODEL CAR VERSION LM 24H AT TORONTO?

1964 was te start of the slot-racing big boom - Let's commemorate!

1964 model cars are actually more popular than ever. Especially Profil 24 and Model Car Factory Hiro are reproducing at scale 1/24th most of the cars having entered the 1964 Le Mans 24 hours. Actually I am buying bodies of the 24 cars which one finds pictured below. Why? Because I am playing with the idea that at the Toronto Worlds we could perhaps contest a Classic Worlds with 24 cars having been seen at the 1964 Le Mans 24 hours as a kind of contest among European racers and North-American racers, where the North-Americans could race the 5 Fords. There is one inconvenience: except for the four Porsches 904 GTS - being simple hard plastic versions - all other cars are in resin or GFK so thazt those 20 other cars should be manufactured by experienced model car assemblers.
I think that I'll give my 20 resin/GFK model cars to one or two model car & slot-racing assemblers making them RTR before the 2009 Toronto Worlds. If you are interested to assemble one of them send me a mail to jppro@pandora.be. [The four Porsches 904 GTS can easily be assembled by racers who wish to drive those cars. We can send them the bodies if they cannot find them.] Motor on each car  must be the ProSlot PS4000-IMCA. It's not possible to work with handout tyres since the differences among the cars are too big. It's perhaps an idea to use exclusively in-liner chassis, since some cars (especially the Alpines) are very small (5.5 cm for the Alpine A210).  Racers, having already subscribed for the Toronto Worlds, and being interested to race those cars can contact me at the same e-mail address as above. Only if enough racers are interested I'll start the assembling of the 20 resin/GFK bodies. I also look after someone functioning as team manager for the 8 Ferraris, as team manager for the 4 Porsches and as team manager for the 5 Fords. The Toronto Classic Worlds can be contested with two racers per car. res. We could e.g. restrict the race to three sections of 8 x 10 minutes with a first day section, a night section in the dark, and a second day section.
I consider such race as pure racing for fun. Let's try it!

THE P+3.0 PROTOTYPES (P+)

THE GT+3.0 GRAND TOURING CARS (DIV III)

THE UNDER 2.0 CARS

lllll1.6 Alfa Romeo TZ-1 (Scuderia St-Ambroeus) [chassis 750 006]

lllll1.6 Alfa Romeo TZ-1 (Scuderia St-Ambroeus) [chassis 750011]

llll1.2 Lotus Mk14 Elite (Team Elite) [chassis 41-10391]

lllll1.2 Alpine-Renault A110 (S.A.A.) [chassis 1709 & 1711]