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FORD GT40 ANTHOLOGY: A unique compilation of stories about these most iconic cars

By John S Allen and Graham Endeacott

2022 review by Guy Loveridge

This title comes slightly late to the party, started by the release of the “Ford vs. Ferrari/Le Mans 66” Hollywood movie, but it deserves to stand slightly apart from that plethora of titles in that it does not try to tell the full story of the Ford GT40, but rather serves up a selection of stories about the iconic Ford, brought together by two authors who certainly know what they are talking about – Allen having written more than one previous title on the GT40 and Endeacott who has built himself one that could be argued to be closer to a real car that some of the “authorised” copies out there today.

This book delivers character in spades. It nods to Ronnie Spain, the recognised global expert on the model and also delves into many archives. I am a huge GT40 fan and own copies of every title that I can find about these amazing machines, but this book has given me images and tales that are new to me. The facts revealed are immensely fascinating and the new-to-me pictures, varying from different takes and angles from well-known shoots, outtakes if you will, to completely new images. Some of the pictures will be familiar to fans of the type, but there is enough totally fresh material here to keep even a confirmed GT40 anorak like me smiling.

A small grumble, other than my standard issue with the Veloce house style of promoting other titles and their corporate website at every opportunity within the pages, is that some of the captions are a little short of what I would expect. On page 254, for example, John Wyer is seen with a car at a racetrack, and is credited, but we are left to wonder who the driver peering over his shoulder from the cockpit might be. Given the extremely high detail in most other captions, this rankles a tad.  Especially when the driver is one time GP regular and future Le Mans winner Richard Attwood!

These small gripes aside, this really is a splendid book which will be enjoyed by all. You can dip into it and read it in chapter snippets, and even enjoy some mystery stories and conspiracy theories! Once again Ken Miles proves a figure of controversy – we get a chapter on the 1966 Le Mans “dead heat” staging and Ford’s manipulation of the results, and also one about Ken surviving the J-Car testing crash and living out his life in Wisconsin, having been paid off by Ford/Shelby…..! I promise you will enjoy this book.

Publisher: Veloce Publishing www.veloce.co.uk

Description: Hardback in landscape presentation (300 x 270mm) with dust jacket, 320 pages. Illustrated profusely with 500 photographs in black & white and colour.

Price: £60.

ISBN: 978-1-787115-76-7


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