Whoever coined the phrase "keeping up with the Jones'" wasn't referring to Dennis Jones. As a young man he built and raced motorcycles, from motocross to road-course caf racers. The man could travel on two wheels like not many others. To do so he must have had a certain level of confidence, or a live-hard, die-fast mindset. Feeling swift, strong, and invincible had to be what Dennis was all about. That's the only way to approach the sort of racing that is contested on two very narrow contact patches at death-defying speed.
While still a teenager, he had the opportunity to ride shotgun in someone's genuine Ford GT40 Mk I. Dennis remembers that time as being when the proverbial seed was planted to one day own a GT40.
That one fateful day to be able to afford a replica GT40 came soon enough. In Dennis' case, buying a replica was probably preferable to owning the genuine article, in terms of practicality. You see, Mr. Jones' penchant for traveling fast on a motorcycle had to be replaced with something. Racing a replica GT40 seemed a viable means to quell his desire for speed.
Several years ago, Mr. Jones met Mr. Bud Jones, an unofficial distributor of GT Developments GT40s. Founded by Ray Christopher and Graham Kelsey in Manchester, England, GT Developments manufactured and sold 300 to 350 GTD40 Mk Is in the mid-'80s through the mid-'90s. Apart from having inadequate brakes and suspension uprights, the GTD40 Mk I was a well-engineered kit car that consisted of a space-frame chassis and fiberglass body. The company made two business decisions that ultimately led to the firm's untimely demise. They spent a great deal of money trying to certify the GTD40 to license and sell the cars as new, modern vehicles. A bit later, GTD's R42 monocoque chassis engineering effort gobbled up all but the last pennies of their profits, so much so, they sold the R42 chassis blueprints and produced chassis to Spectre Cars. For a time they continued making the kits, but the founders finally ran out of steam and sold off the remains of GT Developments to two parties. Some say they sold upwards of 50 kits to CAV, the South African based company that manufactures its own GT40. The last remains of GTD went to some unscrupulous characters in Birmingham, England, who not long after bankrupted the business.
Mr. Bud Jones, an engineer by profession and a hot rod and Ford GT40 enthusiast by hobby, purchased a GTD40 Mk I kit from Messrs. Christopher and Kelsey while on a business trip in the U.K. Bud wound up being an unofficial distributor for GTD by selling five cars, including the one to Dennis.
Dennis Jones finished his kit some four years ago. One of the first things he did was to replace the suspension uprights and the weak brakes with a Wilwood Superlite braking system for all four wheels, consisting of special billet aluminum calipers and vented, cross-drilled high-performance rotors. He installed a Ford 302ci V-8 with a Renault R21 five-speed transaxle that drives Ford CV-joint optimized, custom-made halfshafts for handling the abundant torque that the fully balanced, blueprinted, and built race-mill delivers.
After performing eight months of body and paintwork, Dennis installed an adjustable rear spoiler and front canards, which enables the already sleek GT40 to slip through the airstream at race speeds in a most stable fashion. His last task for achieving comfortable track time was to fabricate an aluminum race seat that can be swapped for the GTD-supplied driver seat for street cruises.
Since completion of the GTD40 Mk I, Dennis drives and races the car every chance he gets. In fact, the day of the scheduled photo shoot, we had to photograph Dennis' car first as he was headed to a nearby track to get in some quality time with his race car. For all the time he puts behind the wheel, there's no keeping up with this Mr. Jones. It was undoubtedly the same way when he raced motorcycles.
Dennis JonesSan Ramon, CaliforniaGT Developments 1965 Ford GT40Mk I replica