1967 Holman Moody Ford Honker II

1967 Holman Moody Ford Honker II


The 1960s were the golden age of sports car racing in the United States, with series like the Canadian-American (Can-Am) Challenge drawing sizable crowds to watch both famous and up-and-coming drivers dice it up in wheel-to-wheel action. Even Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) regional races drew crowds of fans eager to watch home-built cars mix it up with the best that Europe could offer. At this year's Monterey sale, Gooding and Company will offer a series of historic sports racers from that era, including one that proved even Holman and Moody wasn't infallible, and a second that represented the first American-built mid-engine Corvette-powered sports racer.

Following Ford's success at Le Mans in 1966, the automaker decided that victory in the Can-Am series would be next on its racing bucket list. Partnering with Holman-Moody, Ford sponsored development of a car that became known as the Honker II, in honor of John Holman's nickname (Holman was known as "The Honker" for his fondness for using the air horns on the team's transport rig). Designed by Len Bailey, on loan from Ford's GT40 program, the Honker II featured an aluminum monocoque and an aerodynamic fiberglass body perfected in Ford's wind tunnel. Constructed by Alan Mann Racing, Holman-Moody painted the car in the same shade of light metallic purple that it had previously used on the stock car driven by Edward Glenn "Fireball" Roberts, who'd died as a result of injuries sustained in a crash two years prior.

Underneath, the Honker II's front suspension used rocker-box top A-arms and inboard coilover shocks, and Holman-Moody also moved the brakes inboard to allow for better clearance and cooling. While other teams mounted big-block engines, Holman and Moody believed that the weight savings offered by a smaller-displacement V-8 would counter the horsepower deficit, so the Honker II received a 351-cu.in. V-8 that would later be replaced by a 377-cu.in. V-8 that produced somewhere between 500 and 550 horsepower at a time when Chevy-powered cars made in excess of 600 horsepower. Believing the car to be competitive enough post-build, the team assumed that any issues could be quickly sorted during the course of the Can-Am season. Tasked with driving the car, Mario Andretti soon found the flaws in this logic.

Thanks to its absence of horsepower, the Honker II ended up running less downforce for greater speed on the straights. In the corners, the car proved challenging to drive, prompting Andretti to later declare the car "the worst he'd ever driven." Despite this, Andretti turned in a few respectable performances in a season plagued by mechanical failure: At Elkhart Lake, the car was run in practice only; at Bridgehampton (the car's best showing), Andretti started 23rd, but clawed his way to an eighth-place finish; at Mosport, the Honker II failed to start; at Laguna Seca, it did not enter; at Riverside, it was running in fourth place when the transmission failed; and at Las Vegas, the car qualified ninth, but failed to start due to a blown engine.

Actor Paul Newman agreed to sponsor the car in its only season of competition, and was named a team manager in return. Newman's name featured prominently across the nose of the car, prompting Andretti to quip to Newman, "Why don't I put my name on it and you drive it?" In 1969, Newman would get his turn behind the wheel, driving the car during the filming of Winning. Semi-ironically, the car crashed during production, then returned to Holman and Moody; it would remain there until the early 1990s, when Lee Holman funded a complete restoration of the car.

Robert Myrick Photography