Dan Gurney's F1 Eagle Mk1 car is set for Florida auction

Historic Formula 1 cars don’t come much more historic than this remarkable Eagle Mark 1 – which is coming up for auction with Gooding & Company at its Amelia Island sale in Florida, March 2. It is the very first Eagle to be built by the celebrated All American Racers team started by Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby in 1964.

The story goes that the Goodyear tyre company was desperate to get into racing in order to take the limelight away from rival brand Firestone, which was already well-established as a supplier to numerous outfits.

Gurney and Shelby had existing ambitions to create their own team, but not the funds. Goodyear’s sponsorship changed that, and All American Racers (a name chosen by Goodyear president Victor Holt) was founded.

AAR initially entered a Lotus 38 in the 1965 Indy 500, inspiring Gurney to hire Lotus designer Len Terry to develop an F1 car specifically for the team. In order to get the ball rolling, a business called Anglo American Racers was established in Rye, East Sussex, although the cars were to be built at the team’s US base in California.

In the short documentary Dan Gurney – All American Racer: Birth of AAR, sponsored by Bell Helmets (YouTube), Gurney recalled that the car’s nose was deliberately designed with a hawk-like appearance to reflect the name ‘Eagle’, which had already been chosen.

The Eagle being sold by Gooding was the first of just four completed in total and made its debut at the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix.

Despite a famously heavy rainstorm and the car being powered by an obsolete Coventry Climax FPF engine – later cars used a Weslake V12 – Gurney brought it home in seventh place and won the team’s first points three weeks later with a fifth place at Reims.

Accompanied by a vast history file that includes All American Racers’ documents relating to its early life, the car is in remarkably original condition and superb order, having been sympathetically restored by J&L Fabricating in Puyallup, Washington.

According to Gooding, this is “one of the most significant American-built racing cars ever conceived”. And we can’t argue with that.