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April 7th, 1968 was a sad day: Jim Clark lost his life at the Hockenheimring. On the same day at Brands Hatch, Ford debuted their P68/3L prototype. What do these two things have in common, you may ask. Ford wanted to have Jim Clark and Graham Hill drive the new car, but tire contracts prevented this and so the Lotus drivers started at a F 2 event in Hockenheim. It is up to your imagination, what might have happened if Clark had not felt obliged to start in Germany… For 1968, Ford UK had the idea of building a new 3 l-prototype using a slightly detuned Cosworth DFV F1-engine. Len Bailey was engaged for the construction, and the campaigning was handed over to Alan Mann Racing. Unfortunately, the budget was rather small, therefore not enough testing and developing could be done. At Brands Hatch – its first outing – 2 cars showed up for Bruce McLaren/Denny Hulme and Jochen Rindt/Mike Spence. In practice, one engine broke and therefore only a single car could start (with McLaren/Spence). 2nd at the grid, it showed good performance and was in the lead when a driveshaft collapsed. (The race was won by Jacky Ickx/Brian Redman with a Gulf GT40.) Unfortunately, the car was handicapped by permanent defects and problems and did not finish any race it attended. Nevertheless, for me it is one of the best-looking racecars of the 1960s. Incidentially, I could buy an old built-up model from an Italian e-bayer in 2019 which I wanted to modify as the McLaren/Spence car. For those who are interested, here is a link to a WIP (my first ever): Last step was applying the correct decals in the right position (as good as possible – they are not exact, but close) – big help is the internet and the book from Ed Heuvink on the subject. First, some pics of the original: Before and after the treatment - 2 views: 1968 was the year of aerodynamic streamliners (here with a 907 longtail) Another competitor: the 1968/69 Gulf GT40

5 years ago, I got a very rare, built kit of the Ford 3L/P68 from an Italian ebayer (see below). My goal was to rework this and turn it into the #34 car from the 1968 BOAC 500 in Brands Hatch: As some of you encouraged me to write a WIP about it (which never was my intention), I finally decided to do it: Dave Bantoft gave me the last kick with his beautiful 3 D printed model, and I loved to watch Pierre Rivard’s WIPs on several sports racers over the last few years. Don’t expect too much – I just want to show how I tried (and often errored) to achieve some degree of similarity of the model with its 1:1 counterpart. A big help with reference material is Ed Heuvink’s book on the subject and of course the internet. Whereas at first glance, the model looked 90 % correct, it happens to have several issues and lots of details that have to be modified or added. The model has some features shown at the public presentation that were not on the car at the first race, so I believe it is supposed to be the very early version, albeit with an eye-balled rear body which is very wrong. Molded in dark green, the model had been clearcoated (also the glass parts !), so stripping the paint and removing the decals were a must (even a bath in brake fluid was not enough to remove this so I had to scrape the decals with a hobby knife and sandpaper. The clear parts have been polished - they were intact but the headlight covers will be replaced. They have been damaged when I removed the headlights which were chromed blobs. Obviously, the model was a battery-operated toy like many Japanese kits of the time (I'm sure this one dates back to 1968), therefore the Cosworth DFV under the opening hood looks a bit oversized, whereas chassis detail is non-existant, the front axle has a simplified steering mechanism.