1967 | Heron GT40

Heron GT MK4 Sports Racing Car Designed by Ross Baker built by Ross Baker, Bob Gee and Chris Cooke in 1967.
The Heron GT MK4 was a replica of the Ford GT40 MK4 Sports Racing car.
Following the success of the Ford GT40 at Le Mans in 1967 Bob Gee and Ross Baker decided to team up and build this beautiful replica of the car to race the following season.
They spent many hours reading and researching all they could to collect the information and specification to build the car they wanted.
They decided to use a 327 ci Chevrolet Corvette motor, but the gearbox was a problem! With a lot of deliberation they decided to design and build there own transmission unit, it all started with a Ford Zephyr MK4 gears, a Ford V8 crown wheel and pinion with Ford Zephyr output shafts, Howard rotary hoe quick change gears and a Mini oil pump to pressure feed the oil to the gears.

Bob made the patterns from the drawings of Ross to cast the aluminum housings, one casting.
Dave Long Engineering did the machining and then they had the gearbox.

They proceeded to draw plans for the steel monocoque chassis with fiberglass body panels.
All the suspension was to be fabricated from steel with coils.
Once the plans were finished, they started on the body plug.
All the steel panels were cut from the drawings and ten either spot welded or pop riveted together.
Bob made the male plug and glassed over this before sanding and filling it to finish.
The car was two thirds finished, when the controlling body of the sports car racing decided to change the maximum capacity of engines to only 2000cc, which made the car obsolete before it had even raced!

The car was put on hold for a long while and then restarted some years later, being completed in 1988 when it raced at the Whenuapai Wings and Wheels meeting where it competed finished very well. However, straight line and powering through corners were out performing the Ferraris, but the 1967 it was found that the brakes were not up to the cars performance. The car was sold to David Manton in 1990, who had a car collection in New Zealand and the car disappeared for a while. In 2008 Maurice O’Reilly called to say the car was for sale in Belgium after a short stay in the United States. It has been mentioned that the car had European customs concerns for three years, but there is no evidence of this. The car was then purchased by the current owner and supported by Mr. Adrias Stals in Latvia who prepared they car for European racing. The brakes have been upgraded, new coil-overs and the engine horsepower was increased. While the car still used the Heron designed and built transaxle a more up to date unit has been used. The car has successfully competed in a number of race meetings at Spa and Nurburgring competitively finishing well amongst a mixed field, the last race this year at Le Mans in September 2018.