Greatest Racecar? Peter Procter’s 1965 Alan Mann Mustang

I’ve always said that the greatest racecar I’ve ever driven was the Alan Mann Mustang, registration DPK 7B. Andrew Cowan and I won the Touring Car class in it in the 1964 Tour de France. We were 8th overall, the whole thing was won by Lucien Bianchi and Georges Berger in an Ecurie Nationale Belge Ferrari GTO. The event started in Lille and went to various circuits in France including Reims, Rouen, Le Mans, Clermont-Ferrand, Pau and then to Monza in Italy, too.

The Mustang was just a beautiful car to drive and it handled so well for such a big car. Of course, Alan Mann knew what he was doing and he had a great team of mechanics around him too. Straight out of the box it was just perfect; the boys had set it up right. I first met the car in France—it had been transported there separately for the races. The great thing was it immediately felt good, that gives such confidence to a driver—everything right from the off. There were and still are people who suggest that the Mustang is too big and unruly for circuit racing, but these people are totally wrong, I bet they don’t race either. It didn’t matter whether we raced against Minis or Jaguars, we were on top with our Mustang—just a fabulous, fabulous car. I remember we had a dice with the Bernard Consten/Claude de Guezec 3.8 MkII Jaguar, I think they finished 10th. We left them behind quite quickly. After the race, I think the Mustang was shipped straight back to the U.S. Ford was very proud of what we had achieved in the car.