Issue link: http://digital.nexsitepublishing.com/i/100968
John: ��Grady Davis, Vice President of Gulf Oil, was the man behind the racing program. ��He was an enthusiast, running a pair of Corvettes��for Dr Dick Thompson in SCCA races before he bought the GT40 in 1966. ��Grady was such a key figure on the Gulf Board that the other members were happy to let him have his racing. ��When he retired at the end of 1974 three persons were needed to do the work he did. ��At the same time the budget for racing was deleted. It was only due to John Wyer���s and Dr. Jesse Wyllie���s efforts that the Le Mans entry for 1975 went through. ��I attach a quote from Dr��.Wyllie which he sent with his Christmas card in 2009 shortly before he died. I think this explains the reason why Gulf Oil did not cash in on our successes as one would have expected: ���Whenever I read a car magazine these days and see all the pictures of cars in the Gulf blue and orange livery, I am hugely impressed by the achievements of G.R.R.C. ��You and John (and Grady) really did a fabulous, if largely unappreciated job, of��putting Gulf on the world���s racing stage. ��You could not have done a better job or laid a more substantial foundation for a properly planned advertising campaign. ��For personal turf reasons within Gulf the advertising potential was never properly planned as usual. ��Alas!��� Jay: Your book includes the correct Gulf color formulae - but who picked the colors and designed the striping schemes for the cars? John: Grady���s car was painted a dark blue as he requested, to match the Gulf company color. �� On arrival in Pittsburgh, to match the THE REDMOND EUROPEAN ADVANTAGE 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE ��� Free Estimates ��� Free Rental Car* ��� Free 27-Point Vehicle Inspection ��� Performance ��� Wheel Upgrades & Tire Service ��� Normal Maintenance & Repair ��� Shuttle Service Available ��� Track Inspections ��� Pre-purchase ��� Engine (425) 376-2655 18080 NE 68th St, Bldg E Redmond, WA 98052 ��� APR Inspections Rebuilds Tuning ��� BMW Performance Software www.redmondeuropean.com *Major Service. (Microsoft, Boeing, & Nintendo Discounts) 22 October 2011 full Gulf colors, he then had an orange (���marigold��� actually) central stripe painted, as on his Corvettes. ��We ran that car, GT40P/1049, at Daytona and Sebring but we (Wyer, Yorke and myself) thought the scheme to be a bit dull. ��Someone told us Gulf Oil of California had a light blue color scheme. We asked Grady if we could use this and he was quite happy for us to do so. ��Consequently the Mirage M1 was light blue with the orange stripe, with half inch black lines separating the blue from the orange.�� At Monza, the first race for the M1 the timekeepers complained they could not tell the two cars apart when they were passing the pits at speed. The Gulf representative, one Jan Bockman, from Gulf Sweden, took it upon himself, overnight and unknown to us, to paint a triangle on the front of one car to correct this problem. ��It was rather crude but when we returned to Slough the triangle was smoothed out into the now well known ���mustache���. Jay: How would you contrast the two��very successful programs that you were involved with (GT-40 and 917)? John: ��The GT40 was our ���baby���. ��Most of us had grown up with the car from its 1964 birth and endless chassis and engine woes thereafter, so when it was all sorted we all loved the car for its durability (e.g. versus the Lola T70) and strength. We knew it was our efforts that had brought the car to perfection, plus substantial help from Ford with the 4-bolt blocks and other excellent engine parts at the end of 1966. The 917 on the other hand was not quite so loved, despite bringing many successes (except at Le Mans). ��All technical