Another dip into the DSC Archive finds this 2012 50th anniversary tribute to the Ferrari 250 GTO from Ian Wagstaff
Nick Mason’s 250 GTO at speed during the 2008 Goodwood Revival – photo above: John Brooks
In an era that sometimes seems obsessed by anniversaries, this year saw the passing of fifty years since the debut of the Ferrari 250 GTO, one of the most enduring of sixties’ sports cars. Many of the 39 models built arrived at Goodwood earlier this month; and author, historian and sportscar fan Ian Wagstaff was there. Here he fondly remembers one particular example – the UDT Laystall car.
It was calculated that the Ferrari 250 GTOs paraded at this year’s Goodwood Revival meeting to celebrate said car’s 50th anniversary were worth around £300 million. This would suggest that the oft overused word ‘icon’ is truly deserved but for some, half a century ago, there were other words to describe one of the stars of that Goodwood line-up, the meadow green chassis number ‘3505GT’.
The UDT 250 GTO at the recent Goodwood Revival – thought to have been sold earlier this year for around $35 million – photo: Ian Wagstaff
The story of how the ACO stubbornly refused to allow three Lotus 23s to start the 1962 Le Mans 24-hours is well-known. Two of the cars were factory ones, the other, a 750cc version, was entered by the UDT Laystall sponsored British Racing Partnership. As far as BRP’s much-respected chief mechanic Tony Robinson is now concerned, the debacle “was not pleasant but it wasn’t the end of the world. We still had the other problem, didn’t we?”
The “problem” in question was the team’s other entry, its 250 GTO. Robinson was a died-in-the-wool single-seater man, whose first job in motor racing had been to work for Stirling Moss. Now he was employed by a team run by Moss’s father Alfred and his manager Ken Gregory. When Gregory had first told him that sportscars were to be added to the stable, his initial response was that “if sportscars came in one door, I would walk out of the other. It was bad enough having to look after single-seaters without all the electrics.” Of course, he did not leave and, in addition to its Formula One and Formula Two cars, BRP became known for its successful Lotus 19 sports-racers. In 1961 it also entered a Coventry-Climax FWM-engined Lotus Elite for Le Mans with a view to winning the Index of Performance and Thermal Efficiency Cup. Driven by Mike McKee and Cliff Allison, it retired after 11 hours, the little engine not having the stamina for Le Mans.
Robinson was to work at just two Le Mans 24-hour races and the following year his prejudice against sportscars, and in particular, their electrics was justified. For 12 hours the UDT Laystall Ferrari 250 GTO, driven by Innes Ireland and Masten Gregory, was doing well and was up to seventh overall but then the battery packed up and the starter motor refused to work. At the time it was ahead of the six other GTOs, one of which, Pierre Noblet’s entry that the Frenchman shared with Jean Guichet, was to finish second overall.
Sponsor UDT-Laystall had been so pleased with the performance of the Lotus 19s, driven by such as Moss, that it had backed the purchase of the £5,000 250 GTO. Gregory remembers ordering ‘3505GT’ from Maranello Concessionaires during the 1961 Motor Show at Earls Court.
The car was to have made its racing debut, having been driven to the UK from the factory by Innes Ireland, at Goodwood in April 1962. Moss was to have been the pilot but his catastrophic accident in the Formula One race that day meant that the car was withdrawn. Its first race appearance was, therefore, the Silverstone International Trophy meeting where Masten Gregory drove it to second place. Ireland then won with it at Brands Hatch later in the month.
Tony Robinson’s team of young mechanics pose with the UDT Laystall 250 GTO at Le Mans in 1962. (Courtesy Ken Gregory)
With the exception of en route to Le Mans, the 250 GTO was driven to the circuits. The car was kept at Ken Gregory’s home in Kingston Hill and Robinson remembers driving it regularly. One of his young team of mechanics Ron White also now recalls taking the car on the road. It was Robinson who brought it back to the workshop after Moss’s Goodwood crash, having first been to the hospital to find out about Stirling’s condition. Late at night, nothing on the road “it was a nice car to drive,” is Tony’s understatement. He also took it to Aintree and back, once leaving it in the car park of the Chester Country Club. The co-owner of the club requested that Robinson give him a demonstration, which he did one night and frightened the poor chap to death. After the Aintree race he had to be back at the Highgate works early on the Monday morning, giving a lift to Ken Gregory’s secretary Celia Ercolini. In those days the M1 extended only as far as the Watford Gap and most of the route was comprised of what would now be thought of as mere country roads. There was no speed limit in those days but Tony reckons, realising his own limits, that he did not exceed 120mph. “You could take your hand off the wheel and steer it with your right foot. If you backed off the accelerator it drifted one way. If it went too far you just accelerated and it came back.”
The 250 GTO, with Innes Ireland at the wheel, brought the BRP operation what was, arguably, its greatest success, although the Scot hardly mentions it in his autobiography ‘All Arms and Elbows’.
In the August the car was back at Goodwood, this time for the Tourist Trophy. Ireland was to tell author Alan Lis that, in practice, he had a brake disc break up going into Lavant corner. He hit the bank, flattened the side of the car and knocked the chassis out of line. Robinson set the mechanics to work beating out the panels but there was little that they could do about the chassis and so Ireland was forced to start the race with it about a quarter to half an inch out front to rear. Tony can no longer recall the incident while Ken also questions the story, reckoning that if you own a 250 GTO you know whether it has been damaged or not. Nevertheless, there exists a photo of the car with obvious evidence of Ireland’s transgression.
Ireland was to report that he was later to meet Ford main dealer and former Grand Prix driver Cuth Harrison at a 20th-anniversary meeting for the GTO. Harrison then owned the ex-BRP car but when Ireland told him about the accident he simply laughed and said that he had better check to see if the chassis was still bent.
Ireland, who had been practising Le Mans-style getaways where the drivers ran to their cars, made a great start in the race to lead current or future world champions John Surtees, Graham Hill and Jim Clark. By quarter distance he had dropped back behind Surtees: the former motorcycle racer on a charge. On lap 61 the already-lapped Clark spun his Aston Martin, taking Surtees’ Ferrari off at the same time. That put the UDT Laystall GTO back in the lead. Hill, also in a Ferrari, speeded up to challenge him but was still 3.4 seconds behind when the chequered flag fell. It might be said that this was BRP’s finest hour. It could have been very different. On lap 15 Ireland had gone straight on at the chicane when a brake snatched. In previous Goodwood TT’s, such a transgression would have resulted in the car being called into the pits where it would have been held for 60 seconds. In Ireland’s case, the chicane observer decided that his short cut was justified and a blind eye turned.
It was almost the end of sportscar racing as far as BRP was concerned. The following year, it would build it own BRM-engined Grand Prix car, which was designed by Robinson. The Ferrari was sold to Austrian racing driver Gunther Philip for £5,500, returning to the UK a few years later where it was acquired by Eric Heeremna the owner of the Nyetimber vineyards. This summer, US-based collector Craig McCaw bought it for a reported $35 million making it possibly the most expensive Ferrari ever. Internet chatter points out that mobile phone billionaire McCaw has been selling a small island off the coast of Canada so perhaps the proceeds from that are going to the GTO. However, it is impossible for Ken Gregory not to now muse on what his team’s car is currently worth. Tony Robinson reflects, “Not a bad price for a car I tooled around Wembley in the 1960s. I went around the pubs and clubs but never pulled a ‘bird’ with it. I reckon I would now, even if I am in my eighties!”
Although the Ferrari and the Lotus 19s added a number of victories to those scored by its Formula One and Two cars, it is difficult not to think that BRP’s heart, and certainly Tony Robinson’s, was really in single-seaters. John Minney, a mechanic for rival team F.English, is reported to have said, “In a way, I don’t think the GTO was a really important car for BRP, they were into Grand Prix Racing and sportscars as well so I think they weren’t quite as serious about the GTO.”
Ken Gregory disagrees with this observation. “We were very serious about the GTO.”
