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John Wyer
John Wyer (11 December 1909 – 8 April 1989), was an English automobile racing engineer and team manager. He is mainly associated with cars running in the light blue and orange livery of his longtime sponsor Gulf Oil.
Wyer was born in Kidderminster, England in 1909.
As team manager and team owner, Wyer won the 24 Hours of Le Mans several times. His first victory came in the 1959 edition, in his tenth anniversary as Aston Martin team manager, along with Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby, win with the DBR1. The team made their base for Le Mans at the Hotel De France from 1953 - 1975. The race cars would be tended within the courtyard and garage adjacent to the hotel before being driven to and from the circuit on the road for practice, qualifying and the race.[citation needed]
The team also won the 1000 km Nürburgring over three consecutive years.[citation needed]
In 1963 he left Aston Martin for Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) In 1964. After dismal results with the GT40s in their first two years, mainly dealing with reliability due to mechanical failure, the Ford GT40 programme was handed over to Holman Moody and Carroll Shelby to compete against Ferrari, with the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans victory being the most famous, as well as 1967.[citation needed]
Ford closed FAV after the 1966 season, and John Wyer and John Willment formed J.W. Automotive Engineering Ltd (JWA) to take over the Slough factory and continued to build production GT40s on Ford's behalf. As Wyer was the well known team manager and present at race tracks, it was assumed that JW stands for John Wyer even though it is for John Willment, as stated by Willment's brother-in-law Hans Herrmann.
With backing from Gulf Oil and their team manager J-O Bockman, Wyer created the Ford-powered Mirage M-1, a prototype that won the 1967 1000 km Spa. Due to a rule change that came in effect for 1968, the fast big engine prototypes were limited to 3,000 cc like in Formula 1. As only few of them were available, sportscars with up to 5,000 cc were allowed also if at least 50 of them were built. This applied to the two-year-old Ford GT40s, which were modified by Wyer. As a surprise, Wyer won the World Sportscar Championship for Ford in 1968 even though the 2,200 cc Porsche 907 were considered favourites at the beginning of the season. The superior power of the 302 cubic inch (4,942 cc) V8 in the GT40s allowed them to win on fast tracks, and especially at Le Mans two years in a row from 1968 (Pedro Rodríguez and Lucien Bianchi) and 1969 (Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver), even though they were outclassed at twistier tracks.[citation needed]
It became apparent the GT40 would become obsolete after 1968 as the minimum numbers of sportscars was lowered to 25, a loop hole of which Porsche took advantage by building over two dozen 5,000 cc prototypes that were homologated as sports cars in 1969. The Porsche 917 were fast but in 1969 still unreliable and with bad handling. After the 1969 season, Wyer switched also to the 917 (and 908 for slow tracks), and the JWA team became the factory's main partner. They were a major factor in developing the wedge-shaped Kurzheck tail of the 1970 917K which made the car much more stable than the original 1969 long version.[citation needed]
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John Wyer
John Wyer (11 December 1909 – 8 April 1989), was an English automobile racing engineer and team manager. He is mainly associated with cars running in the light blue and orange livery of his longtime sponsor Gulf Oil.
Wyer was born in Kidderminster, England in 1909.
As team manager and team owner, Wyer won the 24 Hours of Le Mans several times. His first victory came in the 1959 edition, in his tenth anniversary as Aston Martin team manager, along with Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby, win with the DBR1. The team made their base for Le Mans at the Hotel De France from 1953 - 1975. The race cars would be tended within the courtyard and garage adjacent to the hotel before being driven to and from the circuit on the road for practice, qualifying and the race.[citation needed]
The team also won the 1000 km Nürburgring over three consecutive years.[citation needed]
In 1963 he left Aston Martin for Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) In 1964. After dismal results with the GT40s in their first two years, mainly dealing with reliability due to mechanical failure, the Ford GT40 programme was handed over to Holman Moody and Carroll Shelby to compete against Ferrari, with the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans victory being the most famous, as well as 1967.[citation needed]
Ford closed FAV after the 1966 season, and John Wyer and John Willment formed J.W. Automotive Engineering Ltd (JWA) to take over the Slough factory and continued to build production GT40s on Ford's behalf. As Wyer was the well known team manager and present at race tracks, it was assumed that JW stands for John Wyer even though it is for John Willment, as stated by Willment's brother-in-law Hans Herrmann.
With backing from Gulf Oil and their team manager J-O Bockman, Wyer created the Ford-powered Mirage M-1, a prototype that won the 1967 1000 km Spa. Due to a rule change that came in effect for 1968, the fast big engine prototypes were limited to 3,000 cc like in Formula 1. As only few of them were available, sportscars with up to 5,000 cc were allowed also if at least 50 of them were built. This applied to the two-year-old Ford GT40s, which were modified by Wyer. As a surprise, Wyer won the World Sportscar Championship for Ford in 1968 even though the 2,200 cc Porsche 907 were considered favourites at the beginning of the season. The superior power of the 302 cubic inch (4,942 cc) V8 in the GT40s allowed them to win on fast tracks, and especially at Le Mans two years in a row from 1968 (Pedro Rodríguez and Lucien Bianchi) and 1969 (Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver), even though they were outclassed at twistier tracks.[citation needed]
It became apparent the GT40 would become obsolete after 1968 as the minimum numbers of sportscars was lowered to 25, a loop hole of which Porsche took advantage by building over two dozen 5,000 cc prototypes that were homologated as sports cars in 1969. The Porsche 917 were fast but in 1969 still unreliable and with bad handling. After the 1969 season, Wyer switched also to the 917 (and 908 for slow tracks), and the JWA team became the factory's main partner. They were a major factor in developing the wedge-shaped Kurzheck tail of the 1970 917K which made the car much more stable than the original 1969 long version.[citation needed]
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