GT40 Uncovered

Co-author of this book, Claude Nahum, was always going to be a Blue Oval man through-andthrough His father is known as ‘the father of the automotive industry in Turkey’ and worked both for and closely with Ford throughout his career, creating Turkey’s own Ford-powered Anadol car The young Claude followed in his footsteps, studying engineering before doing post-grad training at Ford UK in Dunton.

Ever since he read about Ford’s victory at Le Mans in 1966, Nahum has been obsessed with the GT40 –while still a teenager, he painted his own Anadol in white with a black bonnet as a tribute. He bought a (real) GT40 in 1998, went Historic racing and has since owned a second example and commissioned two replicas. The last of these, a recreation of the prototype GT101, came as part of a deal involving John Wyer’s original plan chest, long coveted and stuffed with original drawings for GT40 components.

Now Nahum has achieved his ambition of presenting this treasure-trove in a superb, largeformat (it measures 17in/43cm square) book. Assisted by technical author Steve Rendle, and with design by the award-winning Martin Port, he’s and more since), which allow you to trace the histories of individual cars They can be found for £20 to £35

Building up a full set of the Review is not easy, although you may get lucky at auction and pick up a partial or complete run for less than the £2000-5000 going rate – and they may be in binders, too If you need to complete a set, individual issues from the 1960s-on can cost as little as £5 or less each, with early copies ranging up to £30

1 913089 35 1 created a magnificent work It’s far from being merely a collection of engineering drawings, however: thanks to the support of Ford’s archivist Ted Ryan – and, of course, Port’s imagininative page layouts –it is leavened with period photos and sketches.

After the obligatory introduction to the GT40, the people involved, and an explanation of how the drawing process took place – a fascinating subject in its own right – the book features and explains dozens of the original drawings: everything from suspension uprights to dashboard layouts to transaxles. Well, not everything, of course: Nahum has sensibly ensured that there’s not nearly enough info in this selection to create a whole GT40 from scratch. It’s all rounded off with some beautiful cutaway drawings of key GT40s. Yes, it’s pricey, but this stunning book’s print run has almost sold out. If you want one, act fast. MD