To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION at RM Sothebys' Miami event, 27 - 28 February 2025.

• One of just eight Ford GT40 Mk IIs built; a remarkable, competition-proven Mk II with known history from new
• 2nd-place finish at the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring as the #3 Holman-Moody entry driven by Walt Hansgen and Mark Donohue
• Subsequently used as a test car at Ford’s Kingman test track alongside J-1 and later at Riverside Raceway in preparation for Le Mans
• One of three Holman-Moody GT40 Mk IIs entered at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans; this was the #4 car driven by Mark Donohue and Paul Hawkins
• Following Le Mans, P/1032 was displayed at European motor shows in 1966 and 1967
• Donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in March of 1968
• Restoration completed in 2011 to its #4 Holman-Moody 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans configuration; last shown outside of the IMS Museum at the 2011 Concours d'Elegance of America

The 1960s are regarded by many as the heyday of motor racing—a time when storied drivers from all over the globe were household names, piloting some of the most beautiful machines ever built by the most famous automotive marques in the world.

In the most glamorous, yet grueling, endurance race of the era, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ferrari represented the force to be reckoned with. The race’s 1965 running marked Ferrari’s sixth consecutive win, with Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt behind the wheel of Luigi Chinetti’s NART entry Ferrari 250 LM, chassis number 5893. Even more impressive was the marque’s 1-2-3 finish, with privateer entry P. Dumay’s Ferrari 250 LM and Ecurie Francorchamps’ Ferrari 275 GTB rounding out the podium.

The race was an exciting one, but competition from Ford’s GT40 program was once again lacking. The GT40 was well represented in 1965 with six entrants, but frustratingly, for a second year in a row, none were able to finish the race. A positive takeaway from 1965 for Ford was Phil Hill achieving the fastest lap in practice and the race itself behind the wheel of Shelby American’s #2 car, the 427-cubic-inch V-8-powered GT40X. The Mk I design was showing its age, updates were necessary to make the car more competitive, and more importantly, reliable.

ENTER THE Mk II—AND HOLMAN-MOODY

Having used the big-block NASCAR 427 V-8 in 1965 with the GT40X, it quickly became evident that a larger engine was the solution to many of the GT40’s problems. Following Le Mans in 1965, Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) shipped unfinished GT40s to Shelby American, which team members from Holman-Moody, Alan Mann, and Shelby American assembled to create the GT40 Mk II. Together, they modified the GT40 to accept the bigger NASCAR 427 engine with modifications for endurance racing. With the bigger engines came the need for more cooling, as well as revised aerodynamics to keep the car planted to the track. “Ram air” intakes were added to the shoulders, just in front of the rear wheels, in addition to brake cooling intakes on the rear deck, which afforded the new Mk II with all the cooling power it needed. The Mk II nose received a redesign as well, ensuring the new GT40 stayed glued to the track.

Ford also had Holman-Moody on its side for the GT40 racing program for 1966, in addition to Shelby American. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based Holman-Moody was already a proven race shop when they were asked by Leo Beebe to get involved in the program in fall 1965. Holman-Moody had built a name in racecar construction and auto racing dating back to the 1950s. No stranger to success, in 1965 the Holman-Moody-prepped Fords won an impressive 48 of the 55 NASCAR Grand National Series races that season. Ford’s Beebe, then Director of Special Vehicles, felt the added experience to the GT40 program would be helpful, noting that Shelby was a good racing team—but Holman-Moody was effectively a racing factory with a bigger supporting cast.

SEBRING 1966

This car, chassis number P/1032, was shipped to Shelby American on 5 November 1965. Delivered unfinished, the car arrived as an unpainted chassis with doors, sill panels, and facia, with screen and bulkhead glass and trim. Shelby American completed the car to Mk II specifications. P/1032 was painted white with a flat black nose and shipped to Florida. The car was to serve as a replacement for chassis GT/107 in the race program.

A Holman-Moody entrant for the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring, P/1032 donned race #3 and was piloted by Walt Hansgen and Mark Donohue. Both hailing from New Jersey, Hansgen, then 46 years old, had nearly 20 years on Donohue. Hansgen had competed in two US Formula One Grands Prix and three NASCAR races, and he was a two-time Indianapolis 500 starter (1964 and 1965). But his real success had come in the SCCA, where he was a four-time National Champion in the C Modified class, competing in a Jaguar D-Type from 1956–1958 and a Lister Jaguar in 1959. Hansgen worked for Inskip Motors in New York and Rhode Island, and it was through that and the SCCA community he met Donohue, a graduate of Brown University in Rhode Island with a degree in engineering.

Donohue had won the SCCA national championship in 1961, as well as the Bridgehampton 500-mile SCCA race in 1964. It was through Hansgen that Donohue got a seat to co-drive in bigger events, starting with Sebring in 1965, where he and Hansgen piloted a Ferrari 250 LM for Mecom Racing Team. Donohue would go on to win two divisional championships in 1965, SCCA B Class behind the wheel of a Shelby GT350 and an SCCA Formula C in a Lotus 20B. Later, Donohue would go on to achieve 4th overall (2nd in class) at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans with Bruce McLaren behind the wheel of a Shelby American GT40 Mk IV—in addition to a very successful SCCA Trans AM career and his famous victory at the Indianapolis 500 in 1972.

Hansgen and Donohue proved to be quite the duo. Prior to the 1965 12 Hours of Sebring the Holman-Moody team drivers finished 3rd at the 1965 24 Hours of Daytona in GT40 Mk II chassis P/1031, behind two Shelby American Mk IIs driven by Dan Gurney and Jerry Grant and the 1st-place car driven by Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby.

Looking to build on the success at Daytona, Hansgen and Donohue qualified 4th at Sebring with a time of 2 minutes and 58 seconds flat—edging out the prior month’s Daytona winners, Shelby American’s Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby, by six-tenths of a second.

On race day at Sebring, Hansgen and Donohue shined once again, this time piloting P/1032, race #3, in a competitive field highlighted by 13 GT40s, five Ferraris, and 10 Porsches. Hansgen and Donohue held their own, defending a top 10 place for the last three hours of the race, eventually climbing up to 3rd. Shelby American’s Dan Gurney, the race’s fastest qualifier, was disqualified after pushing he and Jerry Grant’s GT40 Mk II across the finish line, one lap behind Shelby American’s race-winning GT40-based Ford X-1 Roadster piloted by Miles and Ruby. Hansgen and Donohue took 2nd place for Holman-Moody, followed by Peter Revson and Skip Scott finishing 3rd in the Essex Wire GT40.

The 1966 Sebring podium was an impressive 1-2-3 finish for Ford Motor Company and marked Holman-Moody’s best finish at the race.

LE MANS 1966

Following Sebring, and in preparation for Le Mans, P/1032 was shipped to Ford’s Kingman test track in Arizona, where alongside J-1, the prototype GT40 Mk IV, it was run in test sessions from 30 April to 1 May. P/1032 was subsequently sent to Riverside Raceway, where further testing took place from 2–7 May. Following testing, P/1032 was shipped back to Holman-Moody to be prepared for Le Mans, which included being painted in the Mustang shade of Emberglo with white stripes.

At the annual Le Mans test weekend, nine GT40s were in attendance including Mk Is, Mk IIs, and the experimental J-2. On Saturday, in wet conditions, Walt Hansgen had an accident behind the wheel of P/1011, aquaplaning and hitting a retaining wall at high speed. He tragically passed away five days after the accident. The upcoming race would have been Hansgen’s sixth appearance at Le Mans, with his last entry in 1963 with Briggs Cunningham’s team. Hansgen’s tragic and sudden passing led to Australian sports car driver and then three-time Formula One entrant, Paul Hawkins, to drive with Donohue at Le Mans. Hawkins was no stranger to the Circuit de la Sarthe, coming off a 1965 class win in the Donald Healey Motor Company’s Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite.

Ford went all in at Le Mans in 1966 with eight factory-supported Mk IIs entered in the race: three entered by Shelby American, three entered by Holman-Moody, and two entered by Alan Mann. Holman-Moody’s three entrants were Mark Donohue and Paul Hawkins in the #4 car (P/1032, this car), Ronnie Bucknum and Dick Hutcherson in the #5 car (P/1016), and Mario Andretti and Lucien Bianchi in the #6 car (P/1031).

Leading up to race day it became evident that differentiating the GT40s entered in the race was going to be difficult, especially at night. Holman-Moody made the decision to apply DayGlo identification patches, with P/1032 receiving green DayGlo patches on the front nose and on the side, providing easy differentiation amongst the GT40s in the field.

With Mark Donohue and Paul Hawkins behind the wheel, P/1032 qualified 11th, one-tenth of a second behind Phil Hill and Jo Bonnier’s #9 Chevrolet-powered Chaparral 2D, and 1.1 seconds ahead of the Holman-Moody sister car, Mario Andretti and Lucien Bianchi’s #6 GT40 Mk II. Pole wa