Shelby Ford GT Willow Springs Testing 1965 Ford v Ferrari

Rare footage of the Ford GT. Ford v Ferrari

In late 1964 or early '65, friends Steve and Dave Light with their dad Jack had a dream day at Willow Springs. By accident they were there the day Ken Miles was testing the Ford GT for Shelby preparing for the '65 season. They even had their movie camera with them! This is the story as told by Steve.

We were at Willow to watch a friend test his new Lotus 23 and heard a rumor that Ford was bringing a GT out to test, so we hung around. A pickup truck arrived towing the GT on a two-wheel open trailer (seen at the end, that's me in the white jeans helping them load it). There was also a big white van that had lots of telemetry equipment inside where they were monitoring all kinds of data. The car was covered with lots of yarn tufts taped to monitor airflow. They had a new Mustang (so it must have been 1964 or 65), with the trunk lid removed and a guy inside with a movie camera recording the yarn patterns for airflow. One funny thing I recall is that they had the camera tied to the car using an old seat belt, but no gear to secure the camera man.
Soon, a Cessna 172 landed on the pit straight, and taxied up, and Ken Miles jumped out! They were trying several new front spoiler configurations, though I don't remember them working on the rear at all. Its too bad there is no sound, but as I recall it was fantastic.