Ford Mustang news

Racing another type of 60’s Ford. By Terry Sullivan.

Back in the early eighties, I had been racing an assortment of smaller engined cars in the U.K., namely MG Midget (mine) plus other people’s Alfa Romeos, Fiat X19’s etc. I’d managed to get races at most of the U.K. circuits with most of the racing clubs, one of them being the Classic Saloon Car Club. The front runners in this pre 65 saloon series tended to be Lotus Cortinas & 3.8 Jaguars.

Mini Coopers would have done very well had the orgainisers let them. Equally, Alfa Romeo GTA’s would have been quick but as they were rarer than a main road without speed cameras, a rock star’s income tended to be asked for them. At one of the Silverstone meetings, a Shelby Ford Mustang Fastback was allowed in to make-up the field on condition that no trophies would be forthcoming in the event of success. It was beautifully prepared and beautifully fast, helped in no small way as it was running on competition tyres as opposed to everybody else running on 70 profile road Uniroyals. The Shelby, well driven by a Mr. Barraclough, won by some margin prompting me to advertise the MG Midget as soon as I returned home. There weren’t too many race prepared Mustangs around in the early eighties apart from the odd ex Alan Mann or similar with history. Huge prices! I decided to look for a road registered 64/65 Mustang. It took longer than expected as I wanted a U.K. registered car that fitted the spec. best suited to the Pre 65 rules. At that time, the rules dictated standard brakes, although linings/fluids were free, so front discs were essential. It’s surprising how many Mustangs of that era were (a) automatic, (b) 3 speed manual, (c) 6 cylinder & (d) fitted with drums brakes. I eventually bought, from somewhere up the M11, a Candy Apple Red 1965 Ford Mustang that fitted the bill; 4,700 cc. V8, 4 speed manual, front ventilated discs for £950.00. The car was manufactured and sold to a U.S. Diplomat in Austria in 1965. The car somehow found it’s way to the Blighty to be U.K.registered in 1969 as OCD 438G. The next few months were taken up with race prepping; lowering, stiffening, roll caging etc. I sent the engine to Mathwell Engineering, who, for a not insignificant sum of money, produced a very reliable reasonably powerful engine; about 320 H.P. I think I did about 52 races plus practice and, in the first years racing, driving to and from the circuits before I had to do anything other than change the oil. The car was completed over the Winter of 1984 and entered for it’s first pre 65 race at Castle Combe in early 1985. Qualified 6th. and finished 6th. Engine running too hot for comfort. I should have known that one of the first things that one should do when converting a road car for racing is to bin the radiator and fit a larger than standard. I also realised that the Lotus Cortinas would take some catching and even the 3.8 Jaguars weren’t slouches. My next race was at Oulton Park where, it came to light that, fun though it was to spin the inside rear wheel, if I wanted to move up the leader board I would need a limited slip differential. By this time I’d learnt a lot more about the idiosyncrasies of a U.S. Ford and chose to fit a locking diff., known in the trade as a ‘Detroit Locker’. Originally designed for agriculture tractor use, it doesn’t have any limited slip but is all or nothing. Lots of banging and crashing from the rear end but it transformed the car. Towards the end of 1985 I was regularly beating the Jags., but not the Lotus Cortinas. Also, I found the Mustang a bit of a handful in the wet races whereas the Cortinas just seemed to to race as normal. Driving the car in anger in the wet was like trying to break wind when you have diarrhoea! I found that I could improved the Mustang’s wet handling by undoing the anti-roll bars, giving more feel and more forgiveness, if not a little roll.

The club had received an invitation from Holland for members to enter a race at Zandvoort in August. Entry was free for cars from the U.K. and, as Chevron was the main sponsor, we would be given free fuel. Fantastic! Not only would we be ‘paid’ for racing on one of the great European circuits, there was no noise limit! As I was still driving to races, I persuaded a friend of mine to come along with his Granada Estate as support vehicle. So off we went via Harwich, The Hook and on to Zandvoort. There were a few cars from the U.K.; Jags., Austin A35, MG Magnette, Lotus Cortina and my Mustang. We got to the circuit on a Friday evening in time to sign on and enjoy a party that seemed to be a regular event at the Dutch Historic events. The following day was free practice (and you could take passengers!) plus a timed practice session. Zandvoort in those days was a fantastic circuit winding through the coastal sand dunes that had everything any racing driver could possible want. The long straight, onto which one arrived at about 100 m.p.h., ideally suited the Mustang, although the 180 deg. hairpin that had to be slowed for, didn’t. I was told that the Mustang was doing 140 m.p.h. plus on this straight, although I had to back-off to prevent over revving. With brakes that left a Detroit assembly line 20 years previously I was naturally cautious. Not stopping at the end of the main pit straight at Zandvoort could launch you into the North Sea. Race day saw me overcooking on one of the bends when racing a German registered 3.8 MK II Jag and the resulting spin dropped me well down the field when I was in line for a pot. Nevertheless, the whole weekend was brilliant and I returned across the North Sea much contented and impressed with Dutch Historic Racing. Whilst driving the racer onto the ferry I removed one of the exhausts and driving off in Harwich I removed the other. So my journey home to West London on the M25 at 08.00, without V8 engine exhausts, in a car with numbers and oil and petrol companies stickers everywhere, I decided that my next major purchase would be a trailer.

So, the 1985 season ended with the car still intact, both bodily and mechanically, 6th. place in the U.K. championship and few trophies.

The car was checked over during the winter months and the only major change was the fitting of a gearbox from a Sunbeam Tiger. This was done on the advice of a bloke who came up to me in a petrol station and wanted to look over the Mustang. He said that the gearboxes fitted to the 4.7 Tigers were close ratio and, as the gap between 3rd. and top on my car was not conducive to competition work, I duly took his advice.

Apart from the 1986 Classic Saloon Car Club championship, there were invitation races from Germany, Holland, France, Italy & Czech Republic, as was. It would have been fabulous to attend all but as earning a living was clearly going to get in the way, I would have to be selective. However, subsequent events helped with my selection. The first race that I did was a non championship meeting at Brands Hatch. It was a miserable day, cold, windy and very wet. I’ve never been happy racing in the wet and about 4 laps into practice, whilst braking for Paddock Hill, the Mustang veered sharp left into the armco below the grandstand, bounced back spinning onto the track and into the armco on the right of the track above the paddock tunnel. I was O.K., if not a little bruised, but the car wasn’t. So, my decision to trailer the car to meetings was a good one. A cursory scan of the damage showed that my racing plans for 1986 would have to be drastically changed. However, in the cold light of the following day I decided to get on with the late night rebuilding of the front end. One good thing about American cars is their tank like build quality. So a few weeks later and a new, left hand front wing, front disc, stub axle, bottom wishbone, paint etc. the car was ready for a test at Thruxton prior to a race at Hockenheim. I found that it understeered more than I remembered and I was still apprehensive about track driving. Despite this, a week later, I and a few friends left for Hockenheim. It was still early in the year and much snow was encountered en route. We were warmly welcomed on arrival by the editor of a German motorsport magazine, who had invited classic saloons from all over Europe. Fortunately, the snow held off for both the race and practice. Apart from the thrill of racing on a famous circuit it was something of a lacklustre event for me. I didn’t feel that the car was handling too well and the rear brakes were locking-up on occassions. I was also well off the pace particularly compared with another U.K. Mustang that almost won. There is one memory of that weekend that has stuck. The track, as then, doesn’t exist any longer but outside of the stadium were two long straights broken up by chicanes. As I approached the first of these for the first time, all I could see was a chicane composed of large concrete blocks. That image concentrates ones attention somewhat. However, the concrete blocks turned out to be expanded polystyrene, as I discovered when an Italian registered Alfa GTA demolished one of them. On returning to the U.K., I was convinced that the car had a steering fault but friends and helpers couldn’t detect it and it was put down to my paranoiac attitude. Next race was Zandvoort, August Bank Holiday weekend. Because it was the weekend normally allocated for the Dutch Grand Prix, dropped from the calendar, there was no noise limit. Wanting to not get caught out, I called the clerk of the course at the HARC club in Holland who assured me ‘no noise limit’. I had been planning certain changes to make to the Mustang as per the original 60’s competition spec., now that I’d got hold of a copy of the FIA homologation papers, and so I made an exhaust system that was just two right angle pipes exiting under each door a la Shelby. As the Gods had already rewritten the script for the beginning of the year, I should have anticipated trouble. Scrutineering was fine, as was the weather, but on the long high speed straight at Zandvoort I found the car weaving from side to side. Steering problem again. The crew are no going to believe this, I thought, and sure enough I was told not to be wimp and get on with it. On top of that, I was summonsed to the clerk of the course and told that the car was too noisy! I did remind him of our telephone conversation a few days earlier but he said that it was out of his hands and, unless I silenced the engine it would be an early bath. This was a major International Historic meeting and there were races for CanAm and GT’s, all with open exhausts. I still can’t understand how, during the same weekend, some races could be unsilenced and others not. So the choice was silence the car or go home. I, with help of course, managed to cobble something unsightly together that seemed to satisfy the powers that be. Unfortunately, one of the ‘Heath Robinson Mufflers’ came adrift during the subsequent race and I was black flagged. One memorable experience that still lingers from that weekend happened after practice. One of my crew decided to investigate my bleating on about the steering. Nothing was obvious but he did suggest that if we could raise the whole car on a ramp we may be able to glean what the problem might be. I made enquiries amongst my Dutch friends who suggested a local tyre garage in the town of Zandvoort about 2 miles away. So, rather than put the car on a trailer, I drove the car to the exit gates. No bonnet, silencers, tax, MOT, insurance. We were immediately stopped exiting the track by the local plod. I explained the problem and he thought about it for a few minutes and just said don’t drive too fast on the roads. If that had been a British track I would have been transported to the colonies and my estates seized. We still didn’t solve the steering problem so, on my return home, I decided to remove he steering column and box. I found that a thrust bearing on the worm gear had taken a lot of the impact from the Brand’s incident and had distorted. This had the effect when turning the wheel of the steering going from tight to loose causing the wandering. A new bearing cost threepence and transformed the steering and my confidence. To his day my friends still think I imagined the whole thing. The season continued with mixed results and fewer races as a result of my business activities. Over the winter I decided to go right through the car and rebuild it to suit the European Historic FIA races. I managed to get the weight down to the 1200 kilos. homologation requirement, fitted new alloy Revolutions with Yokohama 60 profiles, set the suspension up correctly and change the Candy Apple Red colour to Wimbledon White with Guardsman Blue stripes. The first race I did was at the Paul Ricard circuit, near Marseilles in the South of France; a very long way to tow a racing car for one race. Apart from having to cut up some old racing brake pads to fit to the Range Rover tow vehicle when we ran out of rear brakes, it was an uneventful, lengthy journey. Our French host’s were a very welcoming, friendly bunch of club racers. The FIA British scrutineer, on the other hand, was not. According to him, many aspects of the Mustang did not comply with the homologation regulations. I produced my own copy of the FIA papers, obtained from the Ford Motor Company’s archives, and pointed out that what he said wasn’t legal, was. When I asked to see his copy of the relevant papers, he became quite friendly, shifting from foot to foot, and admitted that he had none! Later on he asked if he could have a copy of mine. The race ended with a class win, case of Lanson champagne, a Lanvin designer tie and an interview on Radio Monte Carlo. I did a few more races that year in France, Germany, Holland and the U.K. managing to get a trophy at each race.

By now it was the winter of 1987/88 and I decided I would concentrate on the French championship for 1988. I’d made many good friends in France and, apart from the racing, the food & wine was more than welcome. So, I did races at Paul Ricard, Dijon, Le Mans, Montlhery, Nogaro and managed class wins at all events which gave me the French championship. This was probably my last chance of any success as the £100,000.00 Mustang and the £80,000.00 Lotus Cortina, as well as professional drivers, had arrived on the historic scene. Also, by now, I was spending more and more time in the Far East leading to my moving to Bangkok. So, with regret, I sold the Mustang to somebody who raced it for a few years and then sold it on again. I’m happy to say that it is still racing successfully.