The History of the TDF class winning Mustang #83

The 4 Mustangs at the Tour de France 1964. From the beginning in Reims they lead the pack. Up front here the 3 Alan Mann prepared Mustangs, a little behind the Ford France entered Mustang.
(Picture Ford)

In this picture second placed DPK6B is still up front before DPK5B and DPK7B and the Ford of France/Henri Greder Mustang (Picture Ford)

Car and Driver tested the car while being at the Comstock racing team in Canada together with their own race Mustang and described it as a clapped out worn TDF car. The Tour de France had certainly took its toll on this car. However it was not pictured in that article.

The first appearance was at the November 29th, 1964 Nassau Speed Week, where Skip Scott drove this then still DPK7B licenced Mustang with the door number #199.
 
Picture courtesy Henry Ford History Association 

Picture courtesy Sports Car Graphics

It was entered again in another race with a "bubble" hood and some body alterations at a February 1965 Daytona Continental race.
Under the hood then was an 8 x 48mm Weber carbureted manifold.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thehenryford/albums/72157629079209198

Picture courtesy David Friedman

We had tried to contact Skip Scott in the early years of research end of the 90ies and through the early years of the 2000s, but he unfortunately passed away in 2003 as we learned. Any trials of contact were not answered by him including the mails from the SAAC HQ's Rick Kopec, looking for the history of his #98 Cobra as we heard. Skip was just was not interested to answer questions obviously.

Early Rumours and tidbits lead after years to a surprising fact:
One of the early rumours was that the DPK7B car was used from A.J. Foyt for the first T/A as it has similar radiused fenders, we found out later that that was not the case after talking to Dale Woods brother.

The other rumour was that it was returned to Holman Moody. I asked genuine mechanics of the current Lee Holman group and they could not remember it coming back. However Lee had one red Mustang in mind when I asked him in 2014. The car of Lees memory soon after turned out  to be 66 Shelby #16 in red livery in 2015, when it was found.

The left over rumour was that it was returned to Europe after Skip Scotts use. It appeared still on monthly inventory lists from Jaques Passino sent to Alan Mann Racing, yet there was no paperwork of confirmation from Alan Mann Racing. Ex-mechanic John Grant had told us that those confirmation requests mostly remained unanswered, several calls came from the US to confirm the papers, but Alan was to busy to follow up on those administrational requests.

The only trace we had were photos from dutch 68 or later races showing black stickers with DPK7B  on a Mustang in the Netherlands 1968. (courtesy racehistory.nl)
This Mustang in question belonged to the  Frami Racing team car and it was raced by Frans Lubin and Han Akersloot. We followed that car a while and it turned out, they had bought it from Ronny Lyon/UK and and it was confirmed to us early on having been the ex Alan Brown/Jack Brabham car. Ronny Lyon himself wrote us from Perth/Australia in 2004, that Alan Brown had told him that it was the former Peter Procter car, yet Ronny mentioned the Monte Carlo, which was in fact not DPK7B, so we first got misleaded by that given trace and put that car literally on the shelf. An oversight that could have saved a lot of time to find the traces of DPK7B. 

Ronny still let Brabham drive in his car after he bought it, since Brown and Brabham had different tire contracts. Ronny entered it for himself in at least two races. Before he left to Australia, he handed the car over to Alan Mann for sale and it soon went away to the Netherlands together with DPK5B within the same week.

Magazines mentioned a fuel injection in Brabhams car in 1966 (in line with Group 5 regulations), but no pictures were around early on. Meanwhile they appeared on the Internet with the archive of the Stanford University and they showed a Tecalemit-Jackson fuel injection installed. The picture there however is labeled with an Abarth factory engine tour, maybe that picture was a spy shot somebody took and pinned on the workbench at the Abarth factory.

A Mustang with a Tecalemit Jackson  fuel injection turned up in  a sales ad from the FRAMI Racing Team and in Jan Alsemgeests ownership, which he got from the van der Ende racing team. An indication for him for the link to the Brabham car. Jan was back then wrenching with Willem van der Ende at the Baarlo Speedway on that Mustang in 1976-1978.

For a long time we thought  that the licence DPK7B was just used for exporting a Mustang  from UK to the Netherlands, a common practice back then as we learned from other cases of the past. Those were the times.

In late 2017 we could fill a few gaps that proove indeed that the car came back to Europe.
Thanks to further research from Erik Zurbriggen we found a sales ad from John Wilment of a Group 10.5 car (meant probably Appendix J, Group 5) of a car with fibrebody pieces.
Could be this car was bought by Alan Brown Racing? Which would speak for the former DPK7B Mustang from Skip Scott.
John Grant told us meanwhile however that he remembers that Alan Brown picked up the car in France and they all at Alan Mann thought it was a new car. We've yet to find out, if the Wilment advertised Mustang was that DPK7B or if it was sent via France to the UK due to the customs way it had to take, since it was sent from France to the US. That would make sense then to return it the same way to clear any paperwork. Ford certainly made an error taking it directly from France to the US, so they would have to return it through Ford France indeed.

And Eric finally sourced an interesting picture, that tells the truth:

This picture indicates that the former Skip Scott car with its fibre hood bracketry is the same car as the Brabham car. If you look at the brackets mounting area and then see the holes of that riveted in the first UK appearance of the Brabham car, it is rather evident that it was the same car.

Picture with permission from W. Taylor, Coterie Press, Peter Darley Collection, 1965 Oulton

We wait for further pictures to add to the proof of that link.

Alan Brown must have added the TJ fuel injection instead of the Weber set-up then for the 66 season. During 1965 the car still ran with a Appendix K carburetor. It was protested by Alan Mann at the last race of the 65 season for having a triple valve set-up. Obviously Alan Mann knew about the engine mods done on this car. He also tried to get Jack Brabham over to the Alan Mann team, who refused. Jack Brabham had confirmed that to us in a mail. He liked the Mustang very much, but he did not see it as his domain.

We first thought that the Ernie Westlake Body shop did the conversion, since both Alan Mann and Alan Brown Racing were using the same body shop. But John Grant set us straight that they did only the fuel tank mods, welding 2 halves together. The wheel arches were done by a mate of Allan Mann in their own workshop. Likewise other body modifications.
It would be interesting if the Daytona (A/FX style) bubble hood was sent to Europe or if it was taken off earlier for another US race car. The sales add of Wilment indicates fibre body pieces. Yet obviously the rivets were smoothed out at a later date, they were only visible in a few early Brabham car pics and later disappeared at the following races. 

The return of DPK7B is very logical with the tax exemption that was made. If it was sent via France to J.Willment or Lincoln cars, is still a bit unclear, as well if Alan Brown got it indeed from either Wilment or Lincoln Cars. A simple explanation is that Alan Brown was one of the distributors of Lincoln Cars, who typically handled all the imports of special Mustangs for the british market. But certainly also for J.Willment Racing.

With that link verified the Brabham car was - as mentioned above - sold from Ronny Lyon to the Frami Racing team  (in a maroon/gold shade). We had been in touch with Ronny early on and he sent us a variety of photos. This is one of it. Others elsewhere on ponysite.de.

In 1967 the car was sold to the Netherlands, ended up in the Frami Racing Team with Frans Lubin owning it and Han Akersloot racing it at least twice and later changed hands again to the van der Ende racing team, who used it at Baarlo Speedway racing events, until it got hit with high speed, while standing sideways on the track. The body was completely destroyed, parts taken of it for a 1967 Mustang and the chassis/body wrecked in Den Hague at the Pematex metal shredder works in 1978.

As of December 2017 Jan v. Alsemgeest - a former mechanic of the van der Ende team - published an article in the TMCN club magazine presenting further proofs to the story of DPK7B being returned to UK as the Brabham car and describing its end in detail as mentioned above. Thanks to Jan for his persistency to clarify the story of DPK7B after it changed hands from the Frami racing team. Still we have Hans Hugenholtz memory that a Frami Mustang burnt up in their garage. Another bit that we had heard early on and never could follow-up due to missing further eye-witnesses. If anybody knows anything about that burning Mustang in the Frami garage, pls. contact us.

 A special thank you to Erik Zurbriggen for keeping in touch for a decade and his support in filling gaps in Mustang racing history. As well for Jeffry Harris and John Grant as well as many others along the 25 years of research.

Stay tuned for more pictures of the story.