AAR Eagle Mk I chassis 104, now at The Revs Institute. Photo by Peter Harholdt, courtesy Revs Institute.
Wanting to prove itself the equal of tire manufacturer Firestone on the world’s premier motorsport stages, Goodyear helped fund an audacious experiment known as All American Racers (AAR). Founded in 1965, AAR was led by Dan Gurney and, until 1970, Carroll Shelby, and its mission was to develop and race competitive cars in both Indy Car and Formula 1. At the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix the company would debut the Eagle Mk I, a car that proved to be the rarest of motorsport unicorns: a Formula 1 car from an American constructor.
By 1965, Dan Gurney was a Formula 1 veteran, having raced for Scuderia Ferrari (in 1959), Owen Racing Organization/BRM (1960), Porsche (1961-’62) and Brabham (1963-’65). In seven years, Dan had achieved two wins (with Brabham, in 1964) and a total of 16 additional podium finishes, ending the 1961 and 1965 seasons fourth in the drivers’ standings. His ultimate goal, however, wasn’t to win races for someone else; instead, Dan wanted to win the F1 championship in a car of his own making.
Dan Gurney on his way to a seventh-place finish at the 1966 German Grand Prix. Image courtesy All American Racers.
With the founding of AAR (a name suggested by Goodyear president Victor Holt, a college basketball All-American), the company pursued parallel development paths for Goodyear-tired open wheel race cars, developing the Mk I (also known as the T1G) Formula 1 chassis and the MK II Indy Car chassis simultaneously. British designer Len Terry, who’d worked with Colin Chapman to develop the Indy-winning Lotus 38, was brought in to assist with crafting a chassis that would work for both applications.
Like the Lotus 38, the AAR Eagle Mk I (and its sister car, the USAC-compliant Mk II) would use a monocoque constructed of riveted aluminum. In the pre-aero era, the Mk I’s most distinctive trait was a “beak” at the nose of the car, a design flourish meant to pay tribute to the car’s bird-of-prey namesake and American icon. The Mk I was designed around a V-12 engine still under development, while the Mk II was designed to accommodate the four-cam Ford V-8 used in the Lotus 38.
Photo by Peter Harholdt, courtesy Revs Institute.
Rule changes made 1966 a good year for a new team to enter the Formula 1 arena. Allowable engine displacement was doubled, growing from 1.5-liters in 1965 to 3.0-liters in 1966, and teams were allowed to run any number of cylinders they saw fit. Forced induction was allowed as well, but supercharged engines were limited to 1.5-liters in displacement to create a theoretically level playing field. Perhaps in an effort to slow these more powerful cars down, minimal weight was raised from 450 kilograms (990 pounds) in 1965 to 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) in 1966.
To craft an engine suitable for AAR’s new Formula 1 chassis, Dan turned to Aubrey Woods, an engineer that Dan knew well from his BRM days. Then at Weslake Engineering, Woods was working on development of a 500cc two-cylinder engine, funded by Shell Oil, that showed great promise. Impressed, Dan contracted with Woods and Weslake to create a 12-cylinder version of the engine, which would displace the 3.0-liters permitted by the 1966 FIA regulations.
Photo by Peter Harholdt, courtesy Revs Institute.
With its F1 engine development in the U.K., AAR set up a British base of operations, forming a subsidiary known as Anglo America Racing. In need of an engine to run in the Eagle Mk I until the Weslake V-12 was available, the new Anglo American Racers F1 team turned to engine builder Climax, which supplied a 2.8-liter (actually, 2,751cc) version of its decade-old FPF four-cylinder engine. Originally designed as a 1.5-liter engine for Formula 2 competition, the FPF was upsized to meet the needs of various series through the years. To obtain the 2.8-liters needed to compete in the Indy 500 (and after 1965, in F1), a larger four-cylinder block was cast to permit bigger cylinder bores.
As a stopgap measure, the FPF was never intended to be a championship-winning engine, though a surprising number of teams ran it during the 1966 and 1967 F1 seasons. With Climax power, the Anglo American Racers Eagle Mk I debuted at the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix, the second race of the F1 season. With Dan driving, the Eagle Mk I would complete 23 of the race’s 28 laps, ending its first outing with an “NC,” or Not Classified, finish.
Dan catching a slide at the 1967 Canadian Grand Prix. Image courtesy AAR.
It was a start, and at the car’s next outing, the 1966 French Grand Prix, the Climax-powered MK I delivered a respectable fifth place finish with Dan behind the wheel. It was to be one of the season’s few highlights, as Dan produced a comparable result (also with the Climax engine) just one more time, at the season-ending Mexican Grand Prix. In between, there were DNF’s for Dan in four events and a seventh-place finish in the German Grand Prix. Phil Hill joined Anglo American Racers for the Italian Grand Prix, but proved unable to qualify in the Climax-powered Mk I. Bob Bondurant came on board for the season’s last two races, but was disqualified at the U.S. Grand Prix and DNF’d in Mexico.
The 1966 Italian Grand Prix was significant to Anglo American Racers for another reason: It marked the debut of the 3.0-liter Weslake V-12, an engine that was remarkable in its design, if not its reliability. Featuring a 30-degree angle between the cylinder banks, four valves per cylinder and an overall length comparable to the four-cam Ford V-8 used in the Eagle Mk II, the Weslake weighed just 365 pounds and produced 370 horsepower at 9,500 RPM. Later versions would produce as much as 410 horsepower.
Photo by Peter Harholdt, courtesy Revs Institute.
Its Achilles heel was its construction, as the engine was reportedly built using machine tools left over from the Second World War. Tolerances were so imprecise that many parts could not be shared from engine to engine, making upkeep and repair a logistical nightmare. In Italy, the Weslake gave up after just seven laps, while at the United States Grand Prix a clutch failure took Dan out after 13 laps (likely not the fault of the Weslake). In Mexico, Dan went back to driving a Climax-powered Eagle Mk I, while Bob Bondurant completed just 24 laps with the Weslake before a fueling problem took him out of the race.
Dan drives chassis 104 to a victory at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix.
Dan kicked off the 1967 season in South Africa using the Climax engine, but his day ended on lap 45 with a suspension failure. For the rest of the season the Anglo American Racers team would use the Weslake V-12, and at Belgium, driving a unique titanium and magnesium intensive Eagle Mk I (chassis AAR-104), Dan delivered the team’s first (and only) F1 win. His victory marked the first time since 1921 that an American team had won a Formula 1 event with an American car, but more significantly it marked the first and only time an American driver would win in a car of his own design and construction.
Dan’s ultimate goal of an F1 championship in the Eagle never materialized. The 1967 season produced just one more podium finish for the team, when Dan drove to third place in the Canadian Grand Prix. Out of 15 starts by three drivers in 11 races, the team would finish just twice, the other 13 green flags ending in DNFs. By 1968, money was tight, and Dan drove the Eagle Mk I in just five events, resulting in four DNFs and a ninth place finish at the German Grand Prix.
Photo by Peter Harholdt, courtesy Revs Institute.
Though not a success in terms of overall wins, the AAR Eagle Mk I was, in the eyes of many, the most beautiful Formula 1 car ever to compete, and its place in American motorsport history is indisputable. Of the four Eagle Mk I’s built in-period (five, counting a car later pieced together from parts), all remain today, in museums or private collections. Chassis AAR104, the titanium and magnesium car driven to a win at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix, resides at The Revs Institute, while a former Revs Institute Eagle Mk I, chassis AAR102 (which won the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in 1967), was sold by Gooding & Company at Pebble Beach in 2014 for $3.74 million.
June 12 marks the golden anniversary of the Eagle Mk I’s debut at the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix, and we can only hope that someday, another American team can accomplish as much in the sport of Formula as Dan Gurney and the Anglo American Racers team.
from Hemmings Daily – News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1SFX1Jk
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