Mettoy Computacar Ford GT40 Mark 4 White Vintage 1960s Battery Motorised Model

Lovely vintage Mettoy model with a battery-powered motor that can be programmed using punch cards. The body is missing some pieces but the chassis, steering, motor and drivetrain work. Approximately 1:24 scale (19cm long).

The Mettoy Computacar (circa 1969-1970) is a vintage battery-operated toy car known as "The Amazing Car with a Memory". It featured programmable movement, using notched cardboard cards fed into its underside to control steering and forward/reverse actions, often featuring a white Ford GT40.

How it Works: The car used a system of springs and levers that followed cuts made on cardboard cards to steer or move in different directions.

Components: Sets typically included the car, 17 cards (4 pre-cut, 13 blanks), and six orange-and-white plastic cones for maneuvering.

Models: While the white Ford GT40 is common, other models like the Chevrolet Astrovette existed.

International Names: In the US, it was distributed by Hasbro as the "Amaze-A-Matic".

The toy was a pioneer in bringing a form of "programming" to children in the late 1960s, allowing users to cut their own cards to create custom courses.

The Ford GT40 is a high-performance mid-engined racing car originally designed and built for and by the Ford Motor Company to compete in 1960s European endurance racing and the World Sportscar Championship. Its specific impetus was to beat Scuderia Ferrari, which had won the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race for six years running from 1960 to 1965. As rules of the time required that GT cars were built in dozens and sold, around 100 cars in total have been made, mostly as 289 cu in (4.7 L) V8-powered Mk Is, of which at least 50 were made in 1965, which allowed FIA-homologation[5] as Group-4-Sportscar for 1966 until 1971. This gave the old MK.I car of Gulf-Wyer the chance to enter and win Le Mans in 1968 and 1969 after prototypes had been limited to 3 litre, with the performance of the Ford 7-litre-V8 in the factory 1966 Mk.II and 1967 Mk.IV prototypes causing this rule change, which also banned the 4-litre V12 Ferrari 330P4 and others after 1967. The Mk.III designation was used for some road-legal cars.

In an effort to develop a car with better aerodynamics (potentially resulting in superior control and speed compared to competitors), the decision was made to re-conceptualize and redesign everything about the vehicle other than its 7-liter engine. This became the Mk IV.

In order to bring the GT40 project into alignment with Ford's "in house" production ideology, more restrictive partnerships were implemented with English firms. This resulted in the sale of Ford Advanced Vehicles to John Wyer, ultimately leading to a new vehicle which would be slated for design by Ford's studios and produced by Ford's subsidiary Kar-Kraft under Ed Hull. Furthermore, there was also a partnership with the Brunswick Aircraft Corporation for expertise on the novel use of aluminium honeycomb panels bonded together to form a lightweight, rigid "tub".

The nickname "J-car" came from its construction to meet the new Appendix J regulations introduced by the FIA in 1966; the redesign resulted in the abandonment of the original Mk I/Mk II chassis.

The first J-car was completed in March 1966 and set the fastest time at the Le Mans trials that year. The tub weighed only 86 lb (39 kg), and the entire car weighed only 2,660 lb (1,207 kg), 300 lb (136 kg) less than the Mk II. In spite of this, it was decided to run the Mk IIs due to their proven reliability, and little or no development was done on the J-car for the rest of the season. Following Le Mans, the development program for the J-car was resumed, and a second car was built. During a test session at Riverside International Raceway in August 1966 with Ken Miles driving, the car suddenly went out of control at the end of its high-speed, one-mile-long (1.6 km) back straight. The honeycomb chassis shattered upon impact, and the car burst into flames, killing Miles. It was determined that the unique, flat-topped "bread van" aerodynamics of the car, lacking any sort of spoiler, led to excess lift. Therefore, a conventional but significantly more aerodynamic body was designed. A total of nine cars were constructed with J-car specification chassis, with six designated as Mk IVs and one as the G7A.

The Mk IV was built around a reinforced J chassis powered by the same 7.0 L engine as the Mk II. Excluding the engine, gearbox, some suspension parts and the brakes from the Mk II, the Mk IV was totally different from other GT40s, using a specific, all-new chassis and bodywork. It was undoubtedly the most radical and American variant of all the GT40s over the years. As a direct result of the Miles accident, the team installed a NASCAR-style steel-tube roll cage in the Mk IV, which made it much safer, but the roll cage was so heavy that it negated most of the weight saving of the then-highly advanced, radically innovative honeycomb-panel construction. The Mk IV had a long, streamlined shape, which gave it exceptional top speed, crucial to do well at Le Mans (a circuit made up predominantly of straight roads connecting tight corners)—the race it was ultimately built for. A 2-speed automatic gearbox was tried, but during the extensive testing of the J-car chassis in 1966 and 1967, it was decided that the 4-speed from the Mk II would be retained.

In 1966 and early 1967, Ford's R&D department in Detroit developed a test rig to simulate circuit laps; the rig was programmed to accurately mimic the characteristics of the target circuit. The Mk IV design was revised based on weeks of simulated Le Mans laps. This was an early example of the now-common practice of using test rigs for Formula One and Le Mans vehicle prototyping.

Thanks to its streamlined aerodynamics, the car proved to be fastest in the field at Le Mans in 1967, achieving 213 mph on the 3.6-mile Mulsanne Straight.

Dan Gurney, who was 6 feet 4 inches tall, requested a bubble-shaped bodywork extension over the driver's seat to accommodate him. Gurney also complained about the weight of the Mk IV, which was 600 pounds (270 kg) more than the Ferrari 330 P4, and, combined with its higher speed, put more stress on its brakes. During practice at Le Mans in 1967, in an effort to preserve the brakes, Gurney developed a strategy (also adopted by co-driver A.J. Foyt who had just won the 1967 Indianapolis 500) of backing completely off the throttle several hundred yards before the approach to the Mulsanne hairpin and virtually coasting into the braking area. This technique saved the brakes, but the resulting increase in the car's recorded lap times during practice led to mistaken speculation within the Ford team that Gurney and Foyt, in an effort to compromise on chassis settings, had hopelessly "dialed out" their car - despite Gurney having been the fastest GT40 pilot in the 1966 practice and race. Also, Gurney was developing his own Eagle V12 F1 car with which he would win the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix the very next weekend.

The Mk IV ran in only two races, the April 1967 12 Hours of Sebring and the June 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans, and won both events. Only one Mk IV was completed for Sebring; the pressure from Ford had been increased considerably after Ford's humiliation at the 1967 Daytona 24h in early February, when Ferrari staged a 1-2-3 finish, honored later by naming a road car the Ferrari Daytona. Mario Andretti and Bruce McLaren won Sebring, Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt won Le Mans (their car was the Mk IV that was apparently least likely to win), where the Ford-representing Shelby-American and Holman & Moody teams showed up to Le Mans with 2 Mk IVs each. The installation of the roll cage was ultimately credited by many with saving the life of Andretti, who crashed violently at the Esses during the 1967 Le Mans yet escaped with minor injuries. Gurney later described the Mk IV as "half-way between a road-legal passenger car and a race car; it was reliable and comfortable, but heavy".

Unlike the earlier Mk I - III cars, the chassis of which were built in Britain, the Mk IV car was built entirely in the United States by Kar Kraft, Ford's performance division in Detroit. Thus, Le Mans 1967 still remains both the only all-American victory in Le Mans history — American drivers (Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt), team (Shelby-American Inc.), chassis constructor (Ford), engine manufacturer (Ford), and tires (Goodyear) — as well as the only victory of a car designed and built entirely (both chassis and engine) in the United States. A total of six Mk IVs were constructed.

One of the Mk IVs was rebuilt to Group 7 (motorsport) rules as the Ford G7 in 1968, and used in the Can-Am series for 1969 and 1970, but with no success.

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