The finished car was dispatched to Holman and Moody, who were charged with running it in the Can-Am series. It soon picked up the moniker Honker II, apparently in tribute to John Holman, who enjoyed tooting the air horns of the team transporters. For reasons unknown it was painted a shade of what was variously described as lavender or pink. The livery and name gave the thing an unfortunate pig-like image that was to prove remarkably apt…

The Can-Am schedule did not start until September, three months after Ford’s second Le Mans win, but the car was barely ready for the first outing at Elkhart Lake. On arrival on Saturday the Holman and Moody truck felled a telephone pole, which didn’t bode well, and the car itself was basically not ready to race. Mario hadn’t even sat in it

“Everything was bad about it,” he recalls. “It was pink, and it was ugly. That car was scary in a straight line. It had lift, actually! I was at a loss with it. It was done so wrong, and the aero package was non-existent. It had a clumsy gearbox, and was just ill-conceived all round. I was the guinea pig on that one.”

Among the things Mario couldn’t understand was why the gear-lever was in a central position, requiring an unnecessarily complex linkage behind the seat.

“It kept getting the wrong gear, so I had to do some thinking as far as my shifting pattern was concerned. I remember going into a corner and shifting from fourth to third. The thing slipped over and picked up second. They told me I had to be careful about my slot! Then they realised what was happening, and finally put the lever where it belonged. It was one nightmare after another.”

The car was withdrawn, and its debut postponed until Bridgehampton, where Ford invited Paul Newman along to see his first motor race. This was shortly before production started on the movie Winning, and the company was so excited about his appearance that the curious legend ‘Paul Newman’s’ was painted across the nose.

“I took him around in a pace car,” Mario remembers, “one of the Shelby Cobras. It scared the shit out of him but I think that’s what piqued Paul’s curiosity about racing.”

That weekend saw the start of a lifelong friendship. Meanwhile a despondent Mario qualified only 23rd, 6.3sec off pole. That led him to utter: ‘Why don’t you put my name on the car and let Paul drive?’

The car did at least finish in eighth place, albeit two laps down. A week later at Mosport, Mario was slowest of all after a troubled practice, 19sec off pole. He elected not to start until serious development work had been carried out.

“There was nothing you could put your hands on. You’d try to do something about it, but the car would not respond because the basic package was so flawed, and Bailey was not there to really help. There were too many engineers that didn’t really know anything, and they would not listen to the driver. I was throwing my hands up in the air.”

The team skipped Laguna Seca and returned with a modified car at Riverside, where a heroic effort saw Mario qualify fifth. However, the gearbox failed after just 10 laps. In the finale at Las Vegas, engine problems caused a non-start and that was the end of the Honker adventure.

“It’s all a blur to me. It was such a negative that I want to have that chapter not exist.”

Despite the obvious shortcomings, Bailey and Mann used the Honker design as the base for the F3L/P68 coupe, fitted with a DFV powerplant. It was no surprise it proved as flawed as its predecessor. Undeterred, Bailey went back to the original concept and pressed on with an open version known as the P69, seen briefly at the BOAC 1000kms in 1969. It had a shorter body and was adorned with wings and spoilers — but it was still about as stable as a house of cards in a hurricane.