GRR

Video: Ride on board with Kristensen in the ludicrous Thunderbird

18th September 2017
Adam Wilkins

Everything about racing a 1959 Ford Thunderbird is rendered aburd by the sheer scale of it – and not just because it's more than five metres long.

In this video, you'll watch nine times Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen wrestle with an oversize Bakelite steering wheel and the longest gear-change throw you'll see this decade while jostling the oversized American sedan around Goodwood faster than any other saloon on the grid.

Mechanical problems meant that he had to start from the pitlane, but he soon starts picking off the small fry one by one as it thunders around the circuit in a blaze of brute force and oversteer. One of the most spectacular drives of the weekend came to an end when a loose exhaust threatened to break free, but until then it was a spectacular performance.

  • Revival

  • Revival 2017

  • St Mary's Trophy

  • Tom Kristensen

  • 2017

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