Additional Race Photos

1964

Bob Whitehouse of Sacramento, CA emailed the following 11 photos of the 1964 Daytona Continental. He is standing in front of the John Eyerly Cobra. At Daytona Bob raced an Alfa Spider using the pseudonym "Charles Mathis" to prevent his wife from knowing. You can find "Mathis" in the results on pages 96/97. Bob also crewed on the BMC factory Sprite at Sebring in March later that year.

Phil Hill, center, together with Pedro Rodriguez, drove the new GTO '64 for American Ferrari distributor Luigi Chinetti. Hill raced a Cobra for Shelby the previous year at Sebring, but otherwise was open to whatever good ride he was offered, such as an Aston Martin 215 at the previous year's Le Mans. Hill would drive for Shelby four times later in '64, as well as the Ford GT-40 for John Wyer.

Bob Whitehouse watched a Chinetti mechanic try to place a wheel on backwards and finally told him to flip it around.

The Cobra coupe leads the new GTO in the infield.

Dan Gurney pits his Cobra roadster with the lay down windshield. Shelby has his best hat ever, the same rag he would wear a month later at Sebring.

The Aston 214 of Brian Hetreed and Chris Kerrison leads the a GTO.

The Bianchi/Piper GTO (left) is following the GTO No. 32 of Perkins/Eve.

This shows the car on the infield when it was running strong. Pete Brock told me, "We were so far ahead of those Ferraris." Photo Tony Triolo.

A GTO/LMB driven by Grossman and Hansgen. This car was an experiment in aerodynamics. See pages 52 and 89 in the book.

The new aerodynamic coupe which had pulled a 38 minute lead on the Ferrari GTOs. Bob Whitehouse, the photographer, could see smoke in the cockpit when he took this photo. This was the last lap before the coupe pitted and caught fire in the pits.

Pedro Rodriguez cruises home to victory at Daytona after the Cobra coupe retired. Little bit of left front fender damage. See chapter 12.

Phil Hill in a team Cobra, Sebring 1964. Sebring was the first race where the Cobras used the chin oil cooler scoops, tacked on during practice to direct air to the oil radiators which had been moved from behind to below the water radiators. AC Cars photo c/o Geoff Howard.

Pedro Rodriguez in the same car he had won Daytona a month earlier, now at Sebring but no where close to the lead. The GTO could not run with the Cobras on the dragstrip-like Sebring circuit. See Tommy Hitchcock's comments on pages 108 and 109 of the book.

Bernard Cahier took many of the great photos in the book and was a good friend to me and pals with Shelby, Phil Hill and Dan Gurney. Click on the picture below which is the reverse of the card and tells a little more about Bernard. By the time Bernard was taking photos of the Cobras, he had already raced in the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio. In 1967 Bernard would partner with Jean Claude Killey to win the GT category at the Targa Florio, so Bernard knew what he was taking photos of!

Click on this photo to enlarge and learn more about Bernard Cahier. Bernard died a few years ago. I am still in contact with his former colleague at Goodyear Racing Europe, Fred Gamble. Fred is over 80 years old and surfs four days a week in Hawaii. He works the other three.

April 17, 1964 Le Mans test day, in the rain, with Jo Schlesser at the wheel of the first Cobra Daytona coupe. See the book, page 119. Pete Brock told me he had never seen a photo of this test day, which established that the Cobra Daytona coupe, even in the rain, was going to be a contender at Le Mans.

Targa Florio 1964: Bruce Dowell, the last 1964 European Cobra team member to be located, sent me these photos from the '64 Targa. This is the congested pit area before the start. See pages 163 and 178/178 of the book. Bruce spent the summer of '64 hitchhiking from race to race. He was "adopted" by the Cobra team at the Targa Florio and then joined up with them again at Spa, Nurburgring, Le Mans and Reims and then watched as a spectator at the Tourist Trophy .

Masten Gregory drove for Shelby both at the Targa and at Spa '64. Masten was one of the first post-war Americans to race in Europe.

Eventual overall winner Colin Davis, Umberto Maglioli, Jo Bonnier and Graham Hill (all in Porsches), before the race, Targa '64.

The GT Class-winning GTO'64 prior to the race. Graemiger photo.

Phil Hill gets ready to take the first stint in the car he shared with Bondurant. Graemiger photo.

Dan Gurney waits for his turn to get into the start line. See page 130 of the book for Dan's finish.

Phil Hill awaits the start. The cars were sent off in 60 second intervals, otherwise mayhem would occur on this "goat trail" country road. John Ohlsen has his hand on the roll bar, Bob Bondurant , Innes Ireland, Joe Siffert and his wife Marianne.

Both Hill and Gurney are in line, in order of their cars' assigned race numbers. Al Dowd is on the right rear fender. John Ohlsen has stepped back.

Colin Davis, winner of the 1964 Targa in a 904 Porsche.

After the race: Norinder's GTO. About five miles of the 44.7 mile course took place on the road coursing along the sea as in this photo. Thanks to Chuck Graemiger for the photo.

After the race: The three team Cobras and the private (white) Cobra of Hitchcock being loaded on the ferry for transport from Sicily to the Italian mainland. Two team Cobras broke their suspension mounts. The third team car and the private Cobra had crash damage.

Spa, Belgium 1964: the Cobra team unloads in front of the Ford garage in Spa, Belgium. The Fiat-chassis, Bartoletti-bodied transporter was purchased by Shelby from Lance Reventlow who had used it for his Formula One effort with Scarab cars. This photo and the following eight photos are from Bob Bondurant. Bob's marketing manager, John Prumatico, discovered these photos stashed away in a forgotten box.

If you look carefully, you can see all four Cobra team entries, the first coupe and three roadsters. At the very left of the photo is Phil Remington leaning against the spoiler he has just fashioned for the tail of the coupe and in the right background are crew Jean Stucki, Jack Hoare, Bruce Dowell and Jim Culleton.

This is Bob Bondurant's 1964 notebook drawing of the very fast Spa, Belgium 8.74 mile course through the Ardennes mountains.

The top half of Innes Ireland's goggles are covered in black tape -- he wanted to see only what was important to see. The young man in the background was Jackie Ickx, then 19 years old. Ickx would go on to win Le Mans six times and finish second twice in the Formula One Championship. Ickx was already a protege of John Wyer who was also helping the Cobras here at Spa. See the book.

Two of the new Ferrari GTOs, the 1964-rebodied version of the 1962-63 GTO. These were the killer-diller cars of the time and would have blown everyone else away had it not been for the Cobra Daytona Coupe. Today one of these GTOs will bring over 40 million dollars and an original version of the VW van in the background, over 20 thousand dollars!

Spa 1964 was David Piper's first race in his cut-down 1962 GTO. Piper lopped off about four inches of the windshield/roof and thereby decreased frontal area. This GTO may have been faster than the 1964 GTO -- see page 136 of the book. Peter Sutcliffe bought the car from Piper, painted it dark green, added a bubble on the drivers's side roof (he was taller) and almost beat the Cobra Team at Oulton Park 1965 and did beat them at Spa in 1965. See the book.

Bob Bondurant watches as Bernard Cahier times Phil HIll's coupe. Bernard wrote many of the race reports for Sportscar Graphic and did everything he could to boost his old friend Carroll Shelby. Bernard fought with the Free French, worked as a waiter in Southern California, raced in the Mille Miglia and in the Targa. Bernard promoted Goodyear racing tires and was one of the great racing photographers.

Phil Hill has just come in from his first practice in the Daytona Coupe and is describing the tail lifting at high speeds over the tops of the hills. Bruce Dowell is at left while Bondurant leans over Hill's shoulder. Hill is reporting to John Wyer and, partially obscured, Bernard Cahier. See pages 136 and 140 of the book. As Bondurant would report the next year at Spa: "We were lapping those hills..."

John Wyer was a friend of Shelby and an important part of the 1964 Cobra European effort in every race except for Nurburgring and Le Mans where he ran his own cars, the new GT-40. Wyer also ran the GT-40 at Reims 1964 but he found time to help the Cobras there.

John Wyer helped the Cobras at the 1964 Targa, Spa, Reims, Freiburg, Tourist Trophy, Sierra Montana and Tour de France. He is featured throughout the book, in these and other chapters. John is still very much a legend in motorsports, the management equivalent of Phil Remington as a fabricator.

This photo was taken a few weeks after the Cobras ran at Spa 1964 and shows the circuit as it must have appeared to the Cobra, Ferrari and Porsche pilots. High speed all the way.

Phil Remington, Bruce Dowell and Phil Hill just before the start at Spa. Phil insisted on being dowsed with water before the start. Spa was an extraordinarily high-speed, scary course and Hill knew he would be the front runner going through multiple turns in the hills at over 160 mph.

The left-hand page is Bob's last page of notes for 1964 Spa, and the right-hand page is his first page of notes for the next race, the Nurburgring 1,000 Kms.

Nurburgring 1964: Chris Amon and Ulf Norinder before the start of the 1964 Nurburgring 1,000 Kms. Chuck Gramiger, a Swiss engineer, maintained Norinder's GTO during the '64 season. Gramiger: "I met the Shelby crowd at the Targa Florio, became friends with the family and acted as coordinator for them because of the languages I spoke. As the GTO was relatively reliable, I had time to spend with the Shelby equipe, which I enjoyed immensely."

This is the aerodynamic (Malcolm Sayer designed) lightweight E-Type of Jaguar dealer Peter Linder at the 1964 Nurburgring. Linder was fast and a little pushy. See the book, page 149.

Ulf Norinder's GTO before the race at the Nurburgring.

Paul Frere did the only road test ever on an FIA Cobra -- the day after the Nurburgring race, on Jo Schlesser's clapped-out finisher. This test is presented in the book, chapter 20. Frere had been a front-line driver in the late '50s and pretty well pegged the Cobra.

Constructing a special-bodied Cobra for 1964 Le Mans: AC Cars' aerodynamic coupe frame, early 1964. These next several photos are AC Cars c/o Geoff Howard.

Engine bay detail for the AC coupe.

Geoff Howard photo from AC Cars. Jack Sears is to the left of the now-finished AC coupe, wearing a suit and tie.

One of the many articles on the M1 testing. Jack Sears got into a lot a trouble when he took the AC Car's Cobra coupe out for a high-speed run on the British freeway, the M1. Testing for Le Mans.

Jack Sears: "I'm not a raving idiot. I would not drive at those speeds if there had been any one else in sight."

AC's coupe at Thames Ditton prior to Le Mans 1964 .

CSX 2299, the first car out the door of Grandsport in Modena. This car would be finished in a night and day session at Le Mans and, in the hands of Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant, set the GT qualifying record, the race lap record and the race distance record.

Alberto Gasparini and Pietro Vaccari, who ran Grandsport with the Ferrari beater in Modena. Jean Stucki: " Everything was made with a hammer and a piece of wood," pages 162-164 of the book.

bruce dowell photo- shelby coupes transporter

Another Bruce Dowell photo, this of the two Shelby American coupes on their journey from Modena, Italy to Le Mans, in the transporter driven by Ermano Cuoghi to a customs/border check point. Check out the Vespa scooter to the right.

Engine bay details for the AC coupe at Le Mans scrutineering.

Le Mans, practice: The number 6 coupe was assigned to Amon/Neerpasch and painted white around the headlights to identify it to the pit crews. Driver to pit radios were another 20 years down the road. If you look carefully at the coupe in the right of the photo, you will see John Ohlsen bent over in the engine compartment and, in the background, his wife Jean in a white Cobra t-shirt sitting on his tool box with her back to the camera. Gramiger photo.

John Ohlsen working on the number 5 Cobra Daytona Coupe, a car he had helped construct from a bare frame in Modena. Gramiger photo.

Pedro Rodriguez holding court pre-race. Rodriguez and Skip Hudson were assigned a 330P Ferrari, which was easily capable of winning, if it could hold together -- always the problem at Le Mans.

John Ohlsen, who seemed to be everywhere --a long way from Onehunga, New Zealand. John played a huge role in the sucess of the Daytona Coupes. Jack Hoare, the European campaign Engineman, is still alive and a great guy. People like John and Jack made the Cobras sucessful. Skip Hudson: "The kind of effort that went into those cars, you could have taken anything and put it on Broadway."

The lineup for the Le Mans start. In the foreground is the Aston 214 which had done 187 mph in practice. The AC coupe had qualified .4 seconds (a lap) faster.

The start. The Shelby Daytona coupe no. 5 is three cars further forward in line, not having yet pulled out. Dan Gurney had qualified the no. 5 car 2.1 seconds faster than the next-fastest GT car, the AC coupe.

Night. Jack Sears and Peter Bolton stayed with the Shelby coupes as long as their car was running right. If you have Cobra racing photos 1962-65, contact me and I'll post them for you, and credit you, on this website.

The surviving coupe pits at Le Mans. Phil Remington is holding the gas filler and Jean Stucki is on his left. After the fire at Daytona, Remington was pretty careful about who handled the gas lines. Another Bruce Dowell photo, never before published.

Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant in the foreground and John Ohlsen cleaning the windscreen. Probably Fred Gamble in the blue Goodyear jacket aft of Ohlsen. Bruce Dowell photo.

Nino Vaccarella prior to his last stint in the winning Ferrari 275 P which he shared with Jean Guichet.

Dan Gurney waits with for Bondurant to finish. Gurney insisted that Bondurant take the last driving stint so that he would have the experience of finishing and winning at Le Mans. Bruce Dowell photo.

The overall-winning Ferrari 275P of Nino Vaccarella and Jean Guichet. Bruce Dowell photo. Skip Hudson told me, "While everybody else was talking about it, I was doing it." This applies also to Bruce Dowell who, as a 21-year old kid lived the dream of working with Shelby's European Cobra team. Skip's quote also applies to many of the people I met through this book -- Bernard Cahier, Fred Gamble, Jack Hoare, even Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant. They were all trying to live the dream. Bruce Dowell photo.

The wrecked AC car. Fred Gamble's explanation of the crash is the best I have heard. The AC coupe had no differential cooler. Shelby's extensive racing had discovered that, in a race longer than two hours or in high ambient temperatures, a differential cooler was needed. Al Dowd told me they learned this at Augusta, GA, in March '64 just prior to '64 Sebring.

Edgar Barth was a Porsche hillclimb specialist and sometime circuit racer. Bondurant raced against him a Freiburg Germany just after the disaster at Reims. See chapter 24.

Jack Sears in the Willment Cobra during practice for the 1964 Goodwood TT. Sears was a hard-charger, but Gurney just blew by him in the Daytona coupe. See chapter 25.

John Surtees in a Ferrari in which he won the 1964 F1 Championship. Surtees had a new 1964 Ferrari GTO for the 1964 Tourist Trophy and would have been a factor against the Cobras, but Surtees' own teammate pushed him off the course and into a crash. See the book, page 207.

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