1966: Gulf and Ford

In 1966 the Gulf Ford partnership saw a much-needed turnaround in fortunes. The Ford MK11s secured the top three places in the 24-hour race at Daytona.

However the Gulf Ford GT40s again encountered difficulties, although they won the GT class, they never actually finished the race, the con rod broke 15 minutes before the finish line but they still managed to get top world championship points.

The MK11 won at Sebring, continuing a great season for the car. At Le Mans there were 13 Fords against 14 Ferraris and Ford had the top three places. However again in a continuing chain of disasters no GT40s managed to finish, but it was still a brilliant result for Gulf Ford. Ford executives thought that would be it for Le Man, but Henry Ford triumphantly shouted to the press screens "we'll be back", as the executives hearts sank and they had to prepare for another year of hard work to come back in 12 months to do it all over again. However Wyer received a letter of congratulations for the result.

The Gulf oil company executive Grady Davies was becoming more interested in Ford and wanted to own a car, he had it custom designed, as a road car with additional racing aspects added to the engine. It was shipped out to the States in April but he still continued with his visits to Slough, to feed his strong interest in racing and submitted a proposal for gulf to become more involved in a race program. In September Wyer was invited to Pittsburgh to present his proposal, within days it was accepted and told that the budget wasn't big enough, so they gave him more money to rewrite it with. He was invited to sit down at the desk there and then to write his own contract, it was immediately typed, two copies made, signed, and one sent off to legal records. Ford Advanced Vehicles was wound up and Wyer set up his own team.