1969 Mirage M3 Spyder – Classified of the Week
July 30, 2024
The word mirage can be defined as “an unrealistic hope or wish that cannot be achieved”, and when it comes to the M3 that’s a rather fitting description, at least as far as the achievement part is concerned. But it’s a sentence that most certainly doesn’t fit with regards to the potential of the car in question because although the M3 struggled to be competitive, the idea behind the whole concept was very much within the realms of possibility, and one that would be proven time and again with other incarnations of the Mirage.
To understand the Mirage though, we have to first talk about the Ford GT40 because that’s exactly what the Mirage was based upon. But this was a project that began back in ’67 when everybody was lauding Ford’s premiere endurance racer, so if it wasn’t broken, then why fix it?
Well, after Ford’s astonishing trouncing of Ferrari at Le Mans in’66, the powers that be decreed that rules around professional endurance racing would change. Two new categories would be introduced for the ’68 season: Group 5 Sports Cars and Group 6 Sport Prototypes, neither of which allowed for the GT40 to really have a place at the table any longer. As such, Ford took it’s ball and went home, closing the door on endurance racing, albeit finishing top of the league with the GT40.
Adapt or die would be the name of the game at this point and from this shake up of regs, Kidderminster-born John Wyer (of Aston Martin and Ford fame) stepped up in order to compete in these new racing classes. Having formed J.W. Automotive Engineering Ltd in ’66 along with John Willment, and having built up a strong reputation as well as a wealth of experience as team manager and owner at Aston Martin (AM had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans several times under Wyer’s reign), Wyer, working out of his workshops in Slough and backed by Gulf Oil (inadvertently creating that iconic imagery in the process), would begin work on a new project using his beloved GT40 as a base, a car he had been heavily involved with as part of Ford Advanced Vehicles in the mid-’60s.
The result was the Mirage M1, a car that many mistook for the GT40, so similar in design and look was it, but the Mirage was a different car on paper, albeit with the same engines used in the Ford. Wyer’s concept was proven, however, when the M1 took the chequered flag at the 1967 Spa-Francorchamps 1000km with Jacky Ickx and Dick Thompson behind the wheel.
Wyer was not one to rest on his laurels though and soon after he would approach Ford in order to use the new F1-bred DFV Ford Cosworth V8 in the Mirage. Ford denied his request but undeterred Wyer reached out to BRM designer Len Terry who would put together the Mirage M2 – complete with a V12 engine from the very company that was paying his salary – for the new 3-litre Group 6 Prototype class. Unfortunately, however, the M2 wasn’t competitive enough and so Wyer would revise the design by chopping off the roof and adding the now available DFV V8, giving rise to the M3 in the process.
With a much lower curb weight sans roof, combined with a far superior engine in the form of the Ford-Cosworth lump, the M3 was way more capable than its predecessor and with Ickx back behind the wheel orders were soon placed for a larger trophy cabinet. The universe had other ideas though, and despite the car’s obvious capabilities various events would transpire to rob it of any real silverware. From mechanical failures to bad weather, the M3 Spyder would only win one race, a race that would also turn out to be its last.
Despite this the M3 remains a bastion of late ’60s motorsport, competing as it did at the highest levels of racing at the time. Later Mirage generations would go on to be incredibly successful but the M3 and its predecessors had already laid the groundwork for that success to be built upon and this Mirage M3 Spyder, proudly displaying its Gulf livery and available now from Fender-Broad Classic Cars, remains eligible for several superb historic racing series. Series like the Masters Sports Car Legends, Classic Endurance Racing by Peter Auto, the Daytona Classic 24 Hours and Sebring Classic 12 Hours by HSR, as well as the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion.
A true icon of its day and the spiritual successor to the Ford GT40, the Mirage M3 Spyder is not only part of, but also propagates the legacy of that most iconic car, as well as that of John Wyer and top tier motor racing in general. Quite the thing and definitely worth your consideration.
