DPJ8B - Peter Harper driving and Peter Procter sitting on the co-drivers seat. Note the special underbody protection device, the side exiting exhaust, the hood fixing lever and the various fog and far beam lights.
These early Mustangs of the pre-series production definitely left Dearborn in March 1964 to be send via Holman Moody to Alan Mann Racing/UK.
Mustangs had their first european rallye appearance in the 6000km
Spa-Sofie-Liege rally in August 1964.
First they had to be homologated, which happened in June/July through Alan
Mann with the FIA.
The rallye started in Belgium, heading to former Yugoslawia and back again to Belgium. Out of 98 starters only 21 finished, one of the toughest rallies ever.
2 Mustangs were entered by Alan Mann Racing/UK - probably VIN#100025 and 100026, but
some time soon we are shedding more light on these
VINs.
100027 and 100030 were in the same shipment, but Alan Mann said, he
did never receive them.
Indeed a number of other Mustangs were in this batch sent overseas, but not all
arrived at Alan Mann. Amongst those where also 100033 and 100055. One went to a Herb Nobb
according to our research papers. Who knows more about this name?
One team driving for Alan Mann were Bo Ljungfeldt and Fergus Sager
in DPG3B. During the night suddenly all headlights failed and Bo this
time was not able to go on with his hairrising driving style. They went down a
sidebank, landed on the roof and Bo in the car was injured.
The car was
heavily damaged. John Grant said this one was crashed beyond repair, but it
seems at least one of both got repaired with another roof and side plexi windows before
Christmas Eve 1964, when Alan used a clapped together car at the Boxing Day
qualification runs. As he narrtes in his book, the car got another engine, we
can just speculate if that was the engine from DPG3B.
Both cars did not finish, Ljungfeldts car crashed
as said at night, the other
DPJ8B due to brake failure, probably an overheating caused by
the applied handbrake at Alan Mann remembered.
Unfortunately we have yet no picture of the crashed DPJ8B to judge which one
was really saved, of if one was made out of two. The car that appeared at the
Boxing Day Race 31st of January carries a DPJ8B licence plate in the race.
Anyway let us stick it at this
moment at this tone of voice, until we find more evidence about the second
car.
One of them was rebuild for Brands
Hatch by Alan Mann and later entered by Paddy McNally. From there we
have 2 stories, the car ending up in Keith Schellenbergs ownership, the other
that the car was owned by John Fellows (see below)
Different pictures are
available, it being shown with the plexi side windows and without headlights
at the Boxing Day qualification most probably without headlight beams and
without licence plate and one at the actual race 4 weeks later. Still
something to research.
Paddy McNally as a
driver is mentioned as well.
We may assume
that the DPJ8B licence tag was put on DPG3B, as both licence plates of DPG3B
were damaged and maybe even scrapped. A common practice, but we don't have
further evidence for that.
Another story is that DPG3B was in the end easy
to repair with parts of another Mustang, the unknown spare cars?. We will shed more light on this soon.
Bought by John Fellows
and used at Silverstone. John wrote us:
"My Mustang was Alan Mann's which I bought
from Paddy. It was white with a dark blue central stripe. I subsequently sold
it in part-ex for a Daytona to Richard Crossthwaite of H.R.Owen."
From there Mustang parts later went again for sale, if a chassis was involved,
is not clear. It is reported that still somebody claims to have that chassis.
If the other Liege car survived (pictures will tell the true story) it may
have been sold, But that is just speculation
as of now, as two other Mustangs were later delivered to UK after the TDF
cars, maybe prepared by HM and/or Alan for those drivers, however they said
no. For sure is that Jacky Ickx also drove DPK6B at some time in Europe,
before receiving APB325B. Ickx and John Whitmore where team mates at
John Wyer then. Easy to get any Mustang.
I have made an interview with Alan Mann in late June 2002, later an interview
with John Grant and years later with Lee Holman and several phone
calls or visits to verify details. The reports are made to best knowledge. Yet
the fun lies in finding more details, as the Alan Mann cars still have some
mystery destinies that keep historians busy.
Details of the Alan Mann
interview can be read here