Eagle 1966/67 'Mk 1' F1 car-by-car histories

Dan Gurney in the Eagle-Climax 101 at the Mexican GP in 1966. Licenced by The Henry Ford under Creative Commons licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic. Original image has been cropped.

The 1966-1968 AAR Eagle is one of the most iconic Formula 1 cars. Dan Gurney became one of only four drivers to ever win in F1 in a car built by his own team when he won the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix in the ultimate magnesium-titanium Eagle.

Designed by Len Terry in England to Dan Gurney’s vision, the AAR Eagle shared many of its components with the Indianapolis Eagle produced alongside it. It was based on Terry's Lotus 38 Indianapolis design from 1965, but with a smoother and more elegant body, and a significantly stiffer monocoque. The monocoques were full-length, but the F1 tub was skinned in 18-gauge aluminium alloy, instead of the 16-gauge used in the Indy car. Although the F1 version was lighter than its Indy sister, it was still heavier than many other F1 cars. Both versions had symmetric suspension, unlike the asymmetric Lotus 38. The monocoques were fabricated at AAR's new factory in Santa Ana, and were maintained during the F1 season at AAR's workshop in Rye, on the East Sussex coast.

The first car was produced before the intended Gurney-Weslake V12 engine was completed, so Dan Gurney raced chassis 101 with an underpowered Coventry Climax engine for the new team’s first few races of 1966. The first definitive Eagle-Weslake was chassis 102, introduced at the Italian Grand Prix. The four-valve Weslake V12 engine had been designed by ex-BRM engineer Aubrey Woods, based on a design turned down by BRM. It was adopted by Weslake and within a week of being completed, it was showing 364 bhp on the test bed, 100 more than the Climax. The Eagle-Weslake was raced three times that season, but retired every time. A new chassis 103 was produced for the start of 1967, fitted with a newer 409 bhp Weslake for Richie Ginther to drive, while Gurney had a 413 bhp unit in chassis 102. The pair ran 1-2 in the final of the Race of Champions, before Ginther retired and Gurney took AAR's first F1 win. Better followed at the Belgian GP, where Gurney took Eagle's first win in the new chassis "mag-ti" chassis 104, built with magnesium skins and titanium suspension to save weight. After that the Eagles remained competitive, but rarely got to the finish, engine and transmission proving particular bugbears. Gurney continued to race 104 in 1968, but without the funding for a new F1 design, withdrew from Formula 1 later that season.

Chassis 101 was sold off to Castrol Canada in 1967, a second was sold to a Swiss hillclimber in early 1968, and a third was sold for the intention of Formula A but the project never reached fruition. The mag-ti chassis 104 was retained by AAR and was displayed at the Briggs Cunningham Automotive Museum at Costa Mesa, California. It was sold to Miles Collier in December 1986 at the same time that Collier bought the Briggs Cunningham collection. It has remained ever since in the Miles Collier Collections, now housed in the Revs Institute in Florida. The only other Eagle whose ownership is public is 101, entered by Bruce Meyer at the Pebble Beach concours in August 2025.

These histories last updated on 08 May 2026.