What If
A talented race car driver who also possessed an extraordinary gift for diplomacy created an unlikely partnership between a British sports car builder and Ford Motor Company. The result was a vehicle that revolutionized the Indianapolis 500. This car changed the game at Indianapolis. Matt Anderson
A Champion Diplomat
When Dan Gurney entered his second Indianapolis 500 in 1963, he was already a hero in the world of auto racing even though some of his greatest achievements—as a driver, car builder, and team owner—were ahead of him. After his qualifying run, he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The headline read: “Insurrection at Indy.”
Dan Gurney at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, May 1963
Artifact
Slide (Photograph)
Summary
Dan Gurney forged one of the most versatile and successful careers in motorsport. His 51 wins as a driver included Grand Prix, Indy car, NASCAR, and sports car events. His accomplishments as an engineer, car builder, and team owner with his company All American Racers included the "Gurney Flap" spoiler extension, the innovative Alligator motorcycle, and 158 AAR-built Eagle race cars.
Creators
Object ID
2009.158.476
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Dan Gurney at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, May 1963
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Gurney did not win that year, but the media praised him as a champion nonetheless because he was one of the primary visionaries behind an astonishing innovation in Indy: the race’s first lightweight, rear-engine, Formula One-style car. Among his fans was editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine, David E. Davis Jr., who in 1964 launched a campaign to elect Gurney to the White House. “Who could possibly be better suited to champion our cause than Daniel Sexton Gurney?” Davis wrote. “He goes like the wind. He can drive anything better than most anybody. He has the enduring love of 300,000 fans at Indianapolis. His name inspires countless stock car partisans in the Southeast. He is the patron saint of American sports car racing. European (Grand Prix) aficionados speak his name in the most reverent tones imaginable. He has become a legend in his own time.”
Davis was famous for his wit. Still, it was a sign of Gurney’s fame as a driver and his reputation as a consummate diplomat that the campaign gained significant media attention. Bumper stickers were printed, button badges sold. Another young racing celebrity, Formula One World Champion Jimmy Clark, even wore one. “If he gets elected,” Clark said at the time, “he won’t have time to come to Europe and run against me.”
It would take two more years after Gurney's 1963 race before the first rear-engine car triumphed at Indy. The road to success involved many racing pioneers, both drivers and designers, and significant corporate sponsorship from the Ford Motor Company. But the credit for starting and propelling what was to become a revolution at America’s most popular single-day sporting event—“The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” as Indy is often called—belongs to Gurney. “He wasn’t the only person to recognize the potential for this style of car,” says Matt Anderson, Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford. “But he was the life force behind it.”
The Long Road to Innovation
It was clear from Gurney’s 1963 qualifying trials that this lightweight chassis—created by the lead designer of Britain’s Team Lotus, Colin Chapman—with a Ford V8 engine located behind the driver was a superior performer to the traditional front-engine roadsters that had competed on the famous Speedway for years. The smaller, rear-engine Lotus-Ford could go faster and hold the road better in the sweeping turns.
Gurney made a strong showing during the race, finishing seventh, but a pair of tire changes knocked him out of contention. The young Scot Jimmy Clark, driving the only other rear-engine car that year, turned in an impressive performance, leading 28 of the 200 laps before dropping to second, behind driver Parnelli Jones. In the final laps, Jones’ car developed an oil leak from a cracked overflow tank. Wanting to avoid a crash on the slick surface, Clark backed away from challenging for the title. “We’ve come this far,” Clark said after the race. “It’s bloody silly to pile into the wall in the last 20 laps.”
Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman and Jim Clark at the Lotus Ford Indy Test, February, 1963
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Drivers Dan Gurney (left) and Jim Clark (right) combined forces with designer Colin Chapman (center) to revolutionize the Indianapolis 500. Front-engine roadsters still dominated the race in the early 1960s, but Gurney believed a rear-engine Formula One style car could win. Gurney brought Chapman together with Ford, and Clark won the 1965 Indy 500 in a Ford-powered, Chapman-designed rear-engine car.
Creators
Keywords
Object ID
2009.158.66
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman and Jim Clark at the Lotus Ford Indy Test, February, 1963
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To appreciate the long journey Gurney, Chapman, Clark, and others on the Lotus-Ford team made before the first rear-engine car finally won at Indy in 1965—an odyssey that presented many unexpected ordeals and opposing forces, including the giant challenge of breaking from Indy tradition—we have to go back to the first running of the Indianapolis 500.
Started in 1911, the 500-mile race around an oval track was an opportunity for emerging American auto manufacturers to test performance and design innovations. The inaugural event attracted 60,000 spectators, including Henry Ford (a racer himself, he considered entering a car two years later but balked at rules requiring him to make it heavier). It also offered a sizable purse to the winner. The first Indy champion, Ray Harroun, won $14,250, which was $4,250 more than the annual salary for baseball’s highest-paid player, the Detroit Tigers’ Ty Cobb. For decades, the Indy 500 was the only auto race most Americans knew anything about.
But by the early 1960s, Indy was lagging behind the technological times. It remained tied to heavy front-engine roadsters that had not fundamentally changed in a decade. Over in Europe and around the world, lithe, rear-engine cars lit up Formula One circuits. Gurney had seen these racers while in Europe and he was convinced that a big American engine mounted in one could revolutionize Indianapolis. No chassis designer impressed him more than Chapman—his Lotus cars were winning Grand Prix events everywhere in the spring of 1962. Gurney acted quickly. He invited Chapman to attend the next running of the Indianapolis 500 and used his own personal funds to pay for Chapman’s airline ticket.
Navigating Lucky and Unlucky Breaks
Unknown to Gurney and Chapman, a Ford Motor Company executive named Don Frey was also at the 1962 race looking for an opportunity that could help Ford elevate its performance reputation with consumers. Guided by Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca, Ford had kicked off a “Total Performance” campaign that ultimately yielded wins in sports cars, stock cars, drag racers and rally cars. But Ford hadn’t yet won Indy, the greatest prize of all. Frey believed that a Ford racing engine was the company’s best chance to make its mark at Indy.
Frey and Ford Motor Company had an engine, but no chassis. Gurney and Chapman had the chassis, but no engine. Gurney and Chapman showed up on Ford’s doorstep that July. They made their pitch, arguing that a light rear-engine car could take faster turns and, being more fuel-efficient and easier on tires, spend less time in the pits. The pair found a receptive audience. Chapman negotiated a generous deal that had Ford picking up nearly all of the expenses. There was one other important condition: while Gurney would, of course, drive one of the proposed Lotus-Ford cars, Chapman insisted on adding Team Lotus’s own star driver to the project, the gifted Jimmy Clark.
1965 Lotus-Ford Race Car
Artifact
Racing car
Date Made
1965
Summary
Scotsman Jim Clark won the Indianapolis 500 with this rear-engine car in 1965. After his victory, a traditional front-engine car never won that race again. The Lotus-Ford combined a European Formula One-inspired lightweight chassis with a big Ford V-8 engine. The Lotus-Ford's success effectively killed the traditional Indy roadster and established a new design for American race cars.
Keywords
United States, Indiana, Indianapolis
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Speedway, Ind.)
Object ID
77.21.1
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
On Exhibit
at Henry Ford Museum in Driven to Win: Racing in America
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
1965 Lotus-Ford Race Car
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Although initially uninterested in Indianapolis, Clark came to relish the challenge, perhaps in part because of the skeptical way in which certain Americans viewed him and his Lotus car. The environment was charged, on and off the track. As Ford racing historian Leo Levine noted in his book Ford: The Dust and the Glory, Indy traditionalists “were used to doing things their own way—widely advertised, naturally, as the best way—and the Establishment didn’t take to this sudden invasion of the premises by a large corporation, a revolutionary design and a bunch of foreigners with strange accents. Even the color of Clark’s car was abhorrent. It was painted the Lotus shade of British Racing Green—and green had for years been a strictly bad-luck color in American oval-track competition.”
As if by fate, the Lotus-Ford team ran into some bad luck. There was the oil incident in 1963. And then the following year—as any Indy race fan knows—seven cars crashed just two laps into the race, tragically killing two drivers. When the race resumed, Gurney and Clark ran with the leaders but both encountered tire problems and withdrew. Then the following May, in 1965, Clark—powered by a 495-horsepower Ford V8 engine—at long last sped under the checkered flag in his Lotus-Ford Type 38. Almost two minutes ahead of his nearest competitor, he set a new average speed record for the race at 150.686 miles per hour and became the first foreigner to win the Indianapolis 500 in half a century.
The rear engine had triumphed. The Formula One-style Lotus-Ford car at once shattered Indianapolis tradition while restoring Indy’s reputation for innovation. Ford Motor Company added a crown jewel to its growing list of racing prizes, helping to fuel the success of its “Total Performance” campaign, which, by 1965, was taking off with the introduction of the widely popular Ford Mustang. Although Gurney was not the winning driver—in fact, in 1965, he had left Team Lotus to race under his own All-American Racers—he was as central to the victory as Clark, Chapman, and Ford.
Propelled by Sudden Opportunities
Gurney never won at Indy, but he went on to become one of the most decorated American race car drivers, winning seven Formula One races (including four Grand Prix World Championship events), seven USAC/Indy road races, five NASCAR races, and two runner-up finishes at the Indianapolis 500. After he retired as a driver, he went on to become a celebrated designer and team owner. He is the only U.S. citizen to win a World Championship Grand Prix in a car of his own construction.
Looking back on his career—as he did when he was awarded the Edison-Ford Medal for Innovation at The Henry Ford in 2014—Gurney singles out adaptability and responsiveness as keys to his success as an innovator. “When you start out you do not pencil out an exact road map stipulating where you are planning to go,” he wrote in the forward to John Zimmerman’s history of Gurney’s All-American Racers. “It’s not like Patton sitting in front of a map sticking pins into the places of attack. In motorsports you are propelled by sudden opportunities, by events, and by schedules outside of your influence. In the relentless rush to beat your competition you hardly ever take a breath, there is no pause to reflect. Even the afterglow of a win is short lived, barely out of victory circle you think of the next race. It is a merry-go-round without season, challenging, demanding, and very exciting.”
Browse Collections
Dan Gurney Looking at Chassis, Lotus Kingman Test, February, 1963
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Dan Gurney forged one of the most versatile and successful careers in motorsport. His 51 wins as a driver included Grand Prix, Indy car, NASCAR, and sports car events. His accomplishments as an engineer, car builder, and team owner with his company All American Racers included the "Gurney Flap" spoiler extension, the innovative Alligator motorcycle, and 158 AAR-built Eagle race cars.
Creators
Keywords
Object ID
2009.158.71
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Dan Gurney Looking at Chassis, Lotus Kingman Test, February, 1963
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Lotus-Ford Race Car at the 1965 Indianapolis 500
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Scotsman Jimmy Clark piloted his Ford-powered Lotus Type 38 around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1965. Clark won that year's Indianapolis 500 with an average race speed of 150.686 miles per hour. He was the first driver to win Indy in a rear-engine car, and the first foreign driver to win since 1916.
Creators
Object ID
2009.158.P.650539.13
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Lotus-Ford Race Car at the 1965 Indianapolis 500
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Dan Gurney, Car and Driver Candidate for President, 1964
Artifact
Bumper sticker
Date Made
1964
Summary
In 1964, Car and Driver launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign supporting race driver Dan Gurney for President of the United States. No other candidate, the magazine wrote, represented the needs of the enthusiast driver. Throughout that summer and fall, "Dan Gurney for President" editorials and advertisements appeared in each issue and, for $1, readers could mail-order Gurney bumper stickers and buttons.
Creators
Place of Creation
Keywords
Object ID
2014.83.1
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
On Exhibit
at Henry Ford Museum in Driven to Win: Racing in America
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Dan Gurney, Car and Driver Candidate for President, 1964
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
1910 Ford Model T Race Car, Driven by Frank Kulick
Artifact
Racing car
Date Made
1910
Summary
Frank Kulick raced this highly modified Model T for Ford Motor Company from 1910 to 1913. On February 17, 1912, Kulick reached 107.8 miles per hour with the car on frozen Lake St. Clair, northeast of Detroit. Ford ended its racing efforts in 1913. By then the company was too busy making and selling Model T cars.
Creators
Place of Creation
Keywords
Object ID
00.136.128
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
Not on exhibit to the public.
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
1910 Ford Model T Race Car, Driven by Frank Kulick
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Ray Harroun, #32 Marmon, 1911 Indianapolis 500
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
The Indianapolis 500, America's premier automobile race, debuted in 1911. The inaugural event drew 40 qualifying cars and 80,000 spectators. Driver Ray Harroun won with his yellow #32 Marmon Wasp. Harroun's car featured an innovative rear-view mirror that let him see competitors behind him. It's believed to be the first use of such a mirror on a race car.
Keywords
Object ID
2009.103.P.5037.6
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Ray Harroun, #32 Marmon, 1911 Indianapolis 500
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Benson Ford, Jim Clark, and Lee Iacocca with Ford Dual Overhead Cam Engine at Indianapolis 500 Race, 1964
Details
Benson Ford, Jim Clark, and Lee Iacocca with Ford Dual Overhead Cam Engine at Indianapolis 500 Race, 1964
Artifact
Photographic print
Date Made
08 May 1964
Summary
Ford executives Benson Ford (left) and Lee Iacocca (right) stood with driver Jim Clark in front of the company's Indianapolis 500 racing engine. Starting with Ford's production Fairlane V-8, engineers substituted lighter materials, increased compression, and replaced the pushrod valvetrain with double overhead camshafts. Horsepower was tripled, and Clark won Indy with the engine in 1965.
Keywords
United States, Indiana, Indianapolis
Automobile industry executives
Engines (Power producing equipment)
Object ID
2009.158.75
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Benson Ford, Jim Clark, and Lee Iacocca with Ford Dual Overhead Cam Engine at Indianapolis 500 Race, 1964
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Jim Clark, #82 Lotus-Ford, 1965 Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis, Indiana, May 1965
Artifact
Digital image
Summary
Jimmy Clark changed the face of the Indianapolis 500 in 1965 with his victory in a Lotus Type 38 powered by a rear-mounted Ford V-8 engine. Indy traditionalists, more familiar with front-engine roadsters, questioned Clark's lightweight Formula One-style chassis. But Clark silenced the doubters when he won with a record-setting average race speed of 150.686 miles per hour.
Creators
Keywords
Object ID
2009.158.317.10567
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Jim Clark, #82 Lotus-Ford, 1965 Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis, Indiana, May 1965
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Donald Frey, Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca at the New York World's Fair, First Anniversary of the Mustang, April 15, 1965
Details
Donald Frey, Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca at the New York World's Fair, First Anniversary of the Mustang, April 15, 1965
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
By the time the Mustang celebrated its first birthday, Ford had sold 418,812 units, giving the car one of the most successful launches in automotive history. Ford commemorated the first anniversary with ten "birthday parties" held throughout the United States on April 15, 1965. The main event was at the New York World's Fair, where the Mustang debuted in 1964.
Creators
Object ID
72.300.1109.5
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Donald Frey, Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca at the New York World's Fair, First Anniversary of the Mustang, April 15, 1965
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Jim Clark in the Lotus-Ford #82 after the Indianapolis 500 Race, June 1, 1965
Artifact
Slide (Photograph)
Summary
Driver Jim Clark gave a thumbs-up signal from the cockpit of his Lotus-Ford Type 38 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1965. Clark won that year's Indianapolis 500 in his Formula One style car -- the first rear-engine car to win at Indy. The British-built racer was powered by a 495-horsepower Ford V-8 engine.
Creators
Object ID
2009.158.42
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Related Objects
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Jim Clark in the Lotus-Ford #82 after the Indianapolis 500 Race, June 1, 1965
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Dan Gurney at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, May 1963
Artifact
Slide (Photograph)
Summary
Dan Gurney forged one of the most versatile and successful careers in motorsport. His 51 wins as a driver included Grand Prix, Indy car, NASCAR, and sports car events. His accomplishments as an engineer, car builder, and team owner with his company All American Racers included the "Gurney Flap" spoiler extension, the innovative Alligator motorcycle, and 158 AAR-built Eagle race cars.
Creators
Object ID
2009.158.476
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Dan Gurney at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, May 1963
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
1965 Lotus-Ford Race Car
Artifact
Racing car
Date Made
1965
Summary
Scotsman Jim Clark won the Indianapolis 500 with this rear-engine car in 1965. After his victory, a traditional front-engine car never won that race again. The Lotus-Ford combined a European Formula One-inspired lightweight chassis with a big Ford V-8 engine. The Lotus-Ford's success effectively killed the traditional Indy roadster and established a new design for American race cars.
Keywords
United States, Indiana, Indianapolis
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Speedway, Ind.)
Object ID
77.21.1
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
On Exhibit
at Henry Ford Museum in Driven to Win: Racing in America
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
1965 Lotus-Ford Race Car
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman and Jim Clark at the Lotus Ford Indy Test, February, 1963
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Drivers Dan Gurney (left) and Jim Clark (right) combined forces with designer Colin Chapman (center) to revolutionize the Indianapolis 500. Front-engine roadsters still dominated the race in the early 1960s, but Gurney believed a rear-engine Formula One style car could win. Gurney brought Chapman together with Ford, and Clark won the 1965 Indy 500 in a Ford-powered, Chapman-designed rear-engine car.
Creators
Keywords
Object ID
2009.158.66
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman and Jim Clark at the Lotus Ford Indy Test, February, 1963
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Discussion Questions
- What or who motivated Dan Gurney to innovate?
- What traits of an innovator did Dan Gurney illustrate?
- Which of these traits do you think was most important to his success in bringing together British race car builder Colin Chapman with Ford Motor Company to introduce the rear-engine Lotus car to the Indy 500 race?
- Do you think you can be an innovator like Dan Gurney? Why or why not?
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