For sale: the gorgeous 1966 Gurney Eagle Mk1, yours for $3-$4m

There’s been no shortage of multimillion-dollar Formula One cars with interesting provenance coming up for sale of late, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down. Today’s example? The gorgeous Gurney Eagle Mk1.

It’s being offered by Gooding & Company in its upcoming Amelia Island sale and is expected to fetch between $3m and $4m. A significant sum for a car, but then it’s a significant car. It’s the very first Gurney Eagle of just four F1 Eagles ever built, for starters.

Dan Gurney, who came through California’s hot rod scene in the Fifties, then fell into global motorsport and raced as a driver for Ferrari, BRM and Shelby American. Big races too, taking in not just F1, but endurance, with stints at Le Mans and Sebring.

He got together with Carroll Shelby to form the ‘All American Racers’ team to build F1 and IndyCar racers and persuaded the designer of the Lotus 38 – Englishman Len Terry – to build an entirely new F1 car. That’s what you’re looking at: chassis 101, replete with its Coventry Climax 2.7-litre four-pot engine.

After being driven by Gurney, Phil Hill and Bob Bondurant, it was then sold to a Canadian racer by the name of Al Pease in 1967, who took on 10 races including the ’67, ’68 and ’69 Canadian GPs. After that, it went to F1 collector Tom Wheatcroft, where it sat on display for 38 years.

After its idle period, it was bought again in 2009 and subjected to a “sympathetic” restoration, along with a reproduction CC 2.7-litre engine which was fitted to better preserve the original ’66 unit. That’ll still be thrown into the sale, mind, because Bonhams reckons this car “is among the most important American-built cars of its generation”.

At least until next week, when another multimillion-dollar F1 car comes up for sale…

Images: Gooding & Company/Mathieu Heurtault.