BOAC 500: Britain’s answer to Indy and Daytona

By Jack Phillips

| 25 Jan 2024

Classic & Sports Car – BOAC 500: Britain’s answer to Indy and Daytona

For British fans in the late 1960s, the easiest and best way to witness the golden era of the World Sportscar Championship was with a pilgrimage to Brands Hatch at varying times of the year.

For when the new BOAC International ‘500’ concluded the season bizarrely early in the summer of 1967, it returned top-line endurance racing to Britain for the first time in years.

‘I am certain,’ wrote British Overseas Airways Corporation chairman Sir Giles Guthrie in his programme notes, ‘that the BOAC “500” will immediately take its place in popularity with Le Mans, the Targa Florio, the Nürburgring and the other classics which make up this championship series.’

Peter Sutcliffe’s Ferrari P4 dives inside an MGB at Druids bend

Former air racer Guthrie had spent the five paragraphs leading up to that rather hopeful conclusion by trying to explain the connection between the BOAC and motorsport, only to effectively land on the illuminating idea that racing drivers travel a lot.

There was form, though, because Ford had made sure the world knew it flew the GT40 to the United States with BOAC for a New York Auto Show preview night on its launch in 1964.

The fixture certainly made a name for itself in the years that followed, if not one that endured – in more ways than one – quite like those Guthrie had mentioned.

It also returned ‘500’ to the name of a British race for the first time since WW2 – the Tourist Trophy had been around 500 miles long, but more by luck than design.

In fact, motorsport has had a mild affliction with the number 500 for more than a century.

In 1911, drivers of cars with capacities just shy of 10 litres cheated death for 200 laps around a 2.5-mile brick-paved bowl in Indianapolis – which, rather neatly, resulted in 500 miles.

Some 113 years and 107 runnings later it remains arguably the biggest race in America, alongside Daytona’s own 500-mile event for stock cars.

That relative newcomer didn’t kick in until as recently as 1959.

Across the Atlantic, Brooklands got in on the act 18 years after that first Indy 500, when the 200 Miles Race graduated to 500 Miles in 1929 and was won by ‘Bentley Boys’ Frank Clement and Jack Barclay.

A handicap race with classes setting off at intervals, it was a fixture in the calendar for the best part of a decade.

The ultimate result – or nadir, depending on your point of view – would have been when ‘Sammy’ Davis and the Earl of March won in an Austin Seven ahead of Edward Ramsden Hall and JD Benjafield’s ‘Blower’ in 1930.

Hans Herrmann and Jochen Neerpasch’s Porsche 907LH at Druids, on its way to fourth place

When the last was won by speed-record hero John Cobb and Oliver Bertram aboard the Napier-Railton in 1937, kilometres not miles were counted and the death knell rang in 1938, when the target was reduced yet further to around 200 miles.

Expectations for an explicitly 500-mile race’s return on 30 July 1967 could not have been higher, if not actually for the fact that it was 500 miles long. This competition had far more going for it than simply its length.

The championship, for one, was perfectly poised. The mighty Porsche, with three 2.2-litre flat-eight 910s and six Grand Prix drivers in Jochen Rindt and Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill and Jo Siffert, and Hans Herrmann and Kurt Ahrens Jnr, led Ferrari by a solitary point.

The Prancing Horse could boast Chris Amon sharing a P4 with Jackie Stewart, Ludovico Scarfiotti with Peter Sutcliffe, and Jonathan Williams with Paul ‘Hawkeye’ Hawkins.

David Piper and Richard Attwood added a Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 412P to the mix, too. But there were big names throughout the 30-odd cars.

Lola had John Surtees sharing a T70 MkIII with David Hobbs, while Jack Brabham was in another with Denny Hulme for Sid Taylor’s squad.

The three Alfa Romeo T33s never materialised, so Lucien Bianchi – who would go on to win Le Mans in a year’s time – partnered Vic Elford in a six-cylinder 910.

Chaparral’s sole 2F ran with Mike Spence and Phil Hill at the wheel; Pedro Rodríguez piloted a GT40 for the first time, albeit in Mirage M1 guise; Brian Redman drove the BRM-powered Chevron; and John Miles partnered Jackie Oliver in a Lotus 47.

It was, as McLaren wrote in his Autosport column, “The biggest and best line-up of GT sports cars and drivers ever seen in England.” And it’s hard to disagree.

There was no undercard, no chance for any youngsters to impress the assembled manufacturers in support races – just a couple of safety demonstrations promoting the life-preserving benefits of fire suits made from aluminised asbestos fabric. Times change.

Chris Amon drops into the Ferrari 330 P4 in 1967, while teammate Peter Sutcliffe (above, middle) watches on

The Lolas had the best of it in practice, with Hulme and Surtees a match on 1 min 36.6 secs, but poleman Hulme was swamped off the line and ‘The Bear’ later burned the clutch.

“My fault,” mechanic Ron Bennett recalled Hulme saying. “I was in that much of a hurry I went out in third.

“I thought I was in first so I thought I’d got wheelspin but, Jesus, I’d cooked the clutch.”

Lola’s race was effectively run when Surtees had to pit from the front on lap two.

Within half an hour, the leaders were thundering by lapped cars, leaving Denis Jenkinson of Motor Sport under the impression that it was: ‘Very obvious that Brands Hatch is too small and wiggly for this sort of racing.’

By the finish, ‘Jenks’ had scribbled: ‘Anyone who was going to go to Brands Hatch and changed their minds at the last moment must regret it for ever’. He was so overawed that the report ran under the headline ‘Our best race’.

In the frenzy of it all, Spence moved the bewinged 2F to the front and slugged it out with the Ferraris – the small pitlane gave the American car a cushion when two Maranello cars were forced to pit at once and lost crucial time in the cramped confines.

Stewart and Amon settled for second place, enough to secure the title for the Scuderia, and the BOAC International ‘500’ had truly taken off.

It was dealt a rough hand eight months later when, just like at Brooklands 40 years earlier, the name had become a misnomer.

Instead of pulling the flag at 500 miles, 1968’s race was a six-hour encounter instead.

The Chaparral 2F of Phil Hill and Mike Spence heads for victory in the 1967 BOAC 500

Not only did the Le Mans Test Day bizarrely clash with the BOAC event’s new 7 April date, but Formula Two was also, tragically, held at Hockenheim.

Jim Clark should have been in an Alan Mann Racing F3L/P68 that day with Graham Hill, had it not been for a tyre conflict.

Fatefully, it was a Firestone that was found to have deflated as he approached the woods of Hockenheim, too.

The low-slung and slippery 3-litre F3L coupé was designed by Len Bailey and far more prototype-looking than any Ford before it and possibly since, even more so than Kar-Kraft’s MkIV.

It had been conceived under the assumption that the GT40 had run its course, but its aerodynamic ‘efficiency’ proved more of an inefficient flaw and neither Alan Mann nor Ford could truly get a handle on it.

Perhaps, with perseverance, it might have been tamed like Porsche would harness the 917.

The Stuttgart equipe had reigned supreme in the opening two rounds of 1968, in America – including that famous photo finish at Daytona – but Ford’s old, phoenix-like GT40 had shown strong enough pace to take pole in Florida. At Brands, it was in the fight.

Belgian Jacky Ickx shared Ford GT40 ‘1075’ with Brian Redman, and they matched laps exactly in the first practice sessions.

The Lancastrian had to fulfil the required testing work alone on Saturday while the future ‘Monsieur Le Mans’ headed to France, setting the quickest time at La Sarthe before nipping back over the Channel for race day.

Both Ickx and Redman would make their names in 1968, having taken very different paths to Johns Wyer and Willment’s Gulf blue-and-orange squad.

Jacky Ickx in ‘1075’, the Ford GT40 he shared with Brian Redman in 1968

Ickx’s star rose rapidly, seemingly destined for the top with a Formula Two championship in 1967 and increasing outings with JWA, whereas Redman had to prove time and again that he could take it to the best.

Ickx was eight years his junior, but they spent 1967 and ’68 entwined: away from JWA, both featured for Cooper in Formula One and both raced for Ferrari in F2.

With hindsight they had an unfair advantage in 1075, which in September took Bianchi and Rodríguez to the top of the podium at Le Mans (French strikes had pushed back the race).

And in 1969, it was in 1075 that Ickx and Oliver won the closest true finish in Le Mans history.

But the Belgian and British pairing hadn’t had any luck with 1075 in the opening two races of 1968, as they failed to finish either Daytona or Sebring – but they had taken that pole at the latter.

At Brands Hatch, their identical time was good enough for fifth behind three Porsches split by the sole-surviving debutant P68.

The other of the two Fords blew up in practice, a portent of things to come.

Nor did 1075 really feature in the early exchanges of the BOAC ‘500’, its single quotes pulling their weight in 1968.

McLaren in the new Ford contender stuttered away from the line before recovering to dice with Siffert and Elford’s Porsche 907s at the front, going three abreast into Paddock Hill through traffic.

It was a truly breathtaking sight, as the three futuristic spaceships threaded through the undulations of the Kent countryside.

But brake woes hobbled the German duo, then a driveshaft failure did for the P68, leaving its ever-reliable GT40 predecessor in the lead.

Pitstop as Brian Redman replaces Jo Siffert in the winning Porsche 908, 1969

Ickx and Redman, with the Briton told of Clark’s death moments before his first stint, still had to cover the recovering Porsches, shedding seconds a lap in the closing stages, including 10 in a single corner when Ickx was offered no gear, but they held on by less than half a minute.

Gerhard Mitter and Scarfiotti claimed the runner-up spot, a couple of laps clear of Elford and Jochen Neerpasch.

The Autodelta Alfa Romeos had appeared in 1968, but the pretty Tipo 33/2s offered little serious competition.

Nanni Galli and Giancarlo Baghetti – who famously won on his F1 debut in the ‘Sharknose’ Ferrari – were the best of the Alfas, way down in 14th. Its day at Brands Hatch would have to wait.

But not before another, final ‘500’ and some unforgettable 1000km races. The BOAC ‘500’ name had soldiered on in the face of reason for 1969, and again was the curtain-raiser for the new sports-car season.

‘A new generation,’ exclaimed the programme, ‘blossoming into a new era’ – with what ‘could provide the finest sports car race of the sixties’.

Tweaks to rules had been made to help the organising body chase its lost manufacturers, but the unintended consequence, the Porsche 917, was still only in pre-production form.

The new, derivative 908 would have to do for that year’s early rounds at least.

Alan Mann’s P68 had evolved into a spider P69, and JWA’s own Ford prototype, the Mirage M2, was hoping for a better Brands debut than the P68 had endured 12 months earlier.

Lola’s latest iteration of the T70 had recently claimed its biggest victory, with Penske at Daytona, and the GT40, that old dog that wouldn’t die, had won at Sebring.

Chris Amon was fourth with Pedro Rodríguez in ’69, in the sole Ferrari 312P

With Ferrari back, albeit with just one 312P rather than two, on paper it was set to be on a par with 1967.

In reality it proved less of a spectacle, but the speed was there.

Redman, now signed by Porsche and just about recovered from his horrific crash at Spa in the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix, joined Siffert in a Porsche 908 Spyder and the pairing was the class of the field.

The Swiss ace bettered even his own F1 lap record.

Three 908/02s comprised the top three, with the Amon/Rodríguez Ferrari finishing fourth ahead of Hobbs and Mike Hailwood in a GT40.

Not even Ickx could keep the Mirage interested further than a third of race distance – still longer than the 14 laps of the P68.

And with that the ‘500’ was no more, but not entirely done.

BOAC’s sponsorship continued into the 1000km of 1970, the race of that Pedro Rodríguez moment on the throttle in the sheeting rain out of Druids towards Bottom Bend. And of that frankly ridiculous recovery drive from black flag to victory.

It continued further, into 1971, when Andrea de Adamich and Henri Pescarolo scored that tortoise-versus-hare Alfa Romeo victory in the pretty, white-nosed T33 ahead of Ickx and Mario Andretti’s Ferrari, and a 917.

The race fell off the 1973 calendar following a drab Ferrari win in 1972 that attracted few and entertained even fewer.

Then the BOAC returned to earth with a bittersweet bump in 1974: fellow aeronaut Matra won, but the British airline could take solace in the fact that nobody was really watching by then.

Images: Motorsport Images/Getty

Enjoy more of the world’s best classic car content every month when you subscribe to C&SC – get our latest deals here

The all-American hero: driving Lance Reventlow’s Scarab sports-racer

Porsche 917: flat-out flat-12