Description
This is lot number 157 in the Bonhams Goodwood Revival Auction on September 7th, please see the Bonhams website for full details.
Significant Period Competition history
Exceptional provenance
One of six AMR team Escorts built-up during 1968
FVA twin-cam engine delivering no less than 210bhp
Beautifully restored and in outstanding condition
Amongst any touring car race-meeting paddock of the later 1960s the Alan Mann Racing team's impeccably-prepared and immaculate red-and-gold entries really commanded attention. The same is certainly true today of this remarkably original and beautifully restored Alan Mann Ford Escort.
Of the six original AMR team Escorts built-up during 1968 - all registered in sequence - only three, including this superb example, retain their original bodyshell. These survivors are 'XOO346F' offered here, '344' and '349', and amongst this trio '346' is unique in having been the 1968 team's remarkable 'supercharged' Ford Escort whose modification from standard British Saloon Car Championship Class C form elevated it into the larger capacity Class D in which it was intended to deny points to the rival V8-engined Ford Falcon Sprints which might otherwise threaten Alan Mann team leader Frank Gardner in his bid for a second consecutive season's Championship title honours in a sister red-and-gold Escort.
Such tactical - certainly ingenious, and some might say devious - thinking was typical of Alan Mann's remarkably ingenious and immensely competitive team, racing upon the Ford Motor Company's behalf.
The so-called supercharging applied to 'XOO 346F's essentially Formula 2-standard 1600cc Cosworth-Ford FVA engine, plainly demonstrated AMR's remarkable level of lateral thinking. No conventional supercharger was fitted, the engine's induction instead being only mildly boosted by an electrically-engaged standard heater unit fan, from which mildly-compressed air was fed directly into the engine's induction airbox. Actual supercharge effect was minimal, but under the regulations '346' became a forced-induction car which meant its capacity should be multiplied by a factor of 1. 4, putting it into the over 2-litre class in direct competition with the rival Ford Falcon V8s driven most notably that year by Australian Brian Muir and British veteran Roy Pierpoint, himself also a long-time friend and former garage-business partner of Alan Mann himself.
As offered here this extremely sympathetically restored projectile embodies 'XOO 346F's original 1968-season bodyshell, suspension, steering rack, pedal box and even the wheel rims, and is fully restored to 1968 race specification with its FVA twin-cam engine delivering no less than 210bhp at the rear wheels.
The car made its AMR-entered debut mid-season '68 for former Team Lotus Formula 1 driver Peter Arundell, making his return to racing after some 18 months' semi-retirement. The car would later be campaigned by no less than double-Formula 1 World Champion-elect Graham Hill, by twice RAC Rally-winner Roger Clark and (scoring its most significant success) by contemporary Team Lotus number 2 driver Jackie Oliver. He secured '346's best finish by taking second place at Brands Hatch on September 2, 1968, forcing Brian Muir's hitherto Championship-challenging Falcon down into third place and so enabling team leader Frank Gardner to clinch the British Championship title at that very meeting.
Former 'King of Formula Junior' Peter Arundell had driven this car upon its debut at London's tortuous Crystal Palace circuit on Whit-Monday 1968, before finishing fourth overall in it at Mallory Park. Roger Clark's brief appearance in the car, at Brands Hatch, ended in a mild collision, before Arundell re-emerged at Silverstone. Graham Hill then took over for Oulton Park, and he prompted the fitting of an ingenious feature restored to the car today which is a supplementary switch enabling the driver to switch off its brake lights mid-race "so as not to give away too much" to pursuing rivals!
Alan Mann was himself an enthusiast who had gone into the motor trade and set up the Wayside Garage at Rusper, near Gatwick Airport in Sussex with his like-minded friend Roy Pierpoint. They both raced at weekends, and Alan Mann aspired to an HWM which he entered in Formula 1.
While himself being an accomplished and capable driver with Ford Zephyrs and Anglias, in 1963 he prepared a Ford Cortina GT under the Alan Andrews Racing banner for British Olympic bob-sledder and future Ford competitions director Henry Taylor. Second place in the 1963 American Marlboro 12-Hours race then impressed Ford and Alan Mann Racing was formed as a Ford quasi-works team for 1964.
Their Ford Mustang won the year's prestigious Tour de France Automobile touring car division, and in 1965 Sir John Whitmore took the European Touring Car Challenge title in an AMR-entered Ford Lotus-Cortina. By 1967 the team was challenging for British Saloon Car Championship honours, its fine Australian driver Frank Gardner taking the title in their Ford Falcon Sprint, before making it two in a row through 1968, initially in a team Lotus-Cortina before the new Escort - as now offered here - replaced the older model.
After its Alan Mann Racing career, '346' passed to the Dutch Frami Racing team for drivers Frans Lubin, Hans Akersloot, Flemming Rasmussen and Jean-Pierre Ortmans, before becoming a BP Racing Belgium entry most notably for the very highly-regarded driver Yvette Fontaine who really was an outstanding contemporary contender, frequently humbling the majority of her male on-track rivals.
Subsequently this much-raced car returned to British ownership, being campaigned widely at club level by Doug Niven (1971), Chris Meek and Bob Howlings (both during 1972) and later by Alistair Lyall (1976) and Tim Read (1977).
In 1981 the car passed rapidly through the ownerships of Vic Lee and Tim Swadkin to Mike Chittenden. In 1989 it was with Colin Raeburn and by 2004 began restoration with new owner and former Alan Mann Racing team mechanic Jim Morgan. He sadly passed away within months, whereupon the car returned to Alan Mann himself, who had regained his enthusiasm for motor racing after decades running his extremely successful Alan Mann Aviation helicopter business based at Fair Oaks aerodrome, just north of Woking, Surrey, and also a fish farming venture.
In 2006 Alan Mann passed the car to Grahame Goudie. He had been building and running cars from his workshop from 2002/ 3 and would continue to do so until 2009/ 10. Grahame then spent 4 years researching '346's history in definitive detail. He was greatly assisted by original AMR mechanics Brian Lewis, Lionel Whitehead and Marc LeSueur. Painstaking restoration then occupied the following 11 years 2010-21 returning the car to the gleaming and as-original condition in which it is offered today.
The car features a 4-speed 'bullet' gearbox, and remarkably ingenious rear suspension. In its original 1300GT form it rode on leaf springs with inboard shock absorbers. AMR experimented with turreted coil springs before Jim Morgan suggested using Morris Minor torsion bar springs. Their operating levers could pass deep into the latest extra-wide 10 1/ 2-inch wheel rims. This feature widened effective leverage upon the rear axle compared to the standard coil-springs which the wider wheels had forced inboard on both sides. Front suspension is by MacPherson strut with separate coil-springs inboard of the strut each side.
So here is a truly outstanding, freshly restored yet still highly original racing saloon car from a truly revered racing team; one campaigned in period by truly premier-league star drivers and which absolutely bristles with 1968-style ingenuity, craftiness (e. g. Graham Hill's brake-lights cut-out) and colourful style. It is a car which will surely be in demand equally as a race or concours entry in the world's leading Historic events. We recommend it highly for the closest consideration...
