Dan Gurney was one of the greatest American race car drivers certainly of the 1960s and possibly of all time. This supremely talented Californian won LeMans in 1967 driving a Ford GT40 MkIV with co-driver AJ Foyt. He also had 4 Formula 1 GP wins to his name, the 1962 French GP in a Porsche, the 1964 French and Mexican GPs for Brabham and finally the 1967 Belgian GP in this beautiful AAR Eagle, making him the first American driver to win a GP in a car of his own construction. Dan tended to race anything and everything and raced in TransAm cars, the CanAm series (with several wins to his name) and even won the illegal 1971 Cannonball Race across America driving a Ferrari Daytona with journalist Brock Yates.
AAR or "All American Racing" was founded in 1965, and the single seater cars produced were primarily intended to race at the Indy 500. Gurney however also intended to tackle F1 racing and so GP versions of the Eagle were produced as well. Ultimately the result was a superb looking F1 car which was fast but proved fragile, and only one F1 GP win in Belgium was the result (although an Eagle won a non-championship F1 race at Brands Hatch in 1967). At the time, Gurney's '67 Belgian GP winning average speed of 145.99mph was the fastest ever seen.
The Eagle F1 car was a relatively conventional design which used exotic metals such as magnesium and titanium in order to save weight without compromising strength. The 3 litre V12 engine was made by Weslake Engineering and one of the most powerful F1 engines in 1967, but unfortunately suffered reliability problems.
Carousel 1 make this fine model of the '67 Belgian GP winner which to my eyes is one of the best looking F1 cars ever. The front air intake is beautifully shaped to resemble an Eagle's beak, while the dark blue paint with white striping looks excellent. The Weslake V12 is covered by a fine metal mesh over it's air intakes and the long exhaust pipes look superb.
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