A race run over two days
The 1967 Indianapolis 500 was scheduled for Tuesday 30 May, the observed Memorial Day holiday, but rain forced a postponement after only a few laps. The race was restarted from the beginning on Wednesday 31 May. That rare two-day format was the first of several unusual features of the event.
A. J. Foyt won, driving a Coyote with a Ford engine. It was his third Indianapolis win, after 1961 and 1964, and he would win a fourth in 1977. His average speed was a little over 151 miles an hour. Al Unser finished second. Pole position had gone to Mario Andretti, who did not finish.
The turbine car
The car that dominated attention, however, was not the winner. Parnelli Jones, the 1963 winner, drove the STP-Paxton Turbocar, a four-wheel-drive machine built for Andy Granatelli’s STP company and powered by a gas turbine engine supplied by Pratt & Whitney. The turbine was a jet-like engine that turned a shaft to drive the wheels instead of using pistons. The car’s low, wide body led spectators to call it the “whooshmobile,” a nickname often repeated in accounts of the time.
Turbine power was not an entirely new idea in racing, but this was the first time a car of that sort had been competitive at Indianapolis. It ran almost silently compared with the roar of piston engines, and it accelerated smoothly out of corners, helped by four-wheel drive.
Jones moved to the front of the race, and by most accounts led more than 150 of the 200 laps. The common figure is 171, though the exact number varies by source, so treat it as approximate. For much of the afternoon the question was not whether a turbine could win but by how much.
The failure
Then, with only a few laps remaining, the car slowed. A transmission component, a bearing in the gearbox, failed and Jones coasted to a stop. It is often described as a cheap part, with a price of about six dollars quoted in popular retellings, though that figure is part of the legend and should be read with caution. The race was three laps from the finish when the car dropped out, by most accounts.
Foyt, who had been behind the leader, took over at the front. Shortly afterwards, on the final lap, a multi-car crash occurred on the main straight. Foyt is reported to have kept his speed up and driven through the smoke and wreckage, and he crossed the line first. The incident is part of Indianapolis folklore.
Why the car mattered
Turbines raised an unanswered question about the rules. Racing at Indianapolis had traditionally centred on piston engines, and the 1967 car made officials think about how to classify a different technology. USAC, the sport’s sanctioning body, made changes for the following season that limited the air-intake area of turbine engines, which effectively reduced their advantage.
Granatelli returned in 1968 with turbine cars built by Lotus, which were radical wedge-shaped designs. They too led for long stretches but failed to win, and later restrictions finished the experiment at Indianapolis. The turbine’s story there therefore ended with a series of near misses, not a win.
Engineers sometimes argue that the turbine failures showed the limits of the concept in racing, which depends on rapid changes of speed. Others say that the rule changes were designed to protect the existing teams. Both positions are opinions, and the historical record supports the narrower point that the turbine was fast but never won.
Foyt’s place in racing history
For all the attention given to the turbine, Foyt’s win was a major achievement. Within about two weeks he won again at Le Mans, with Dan Gurney, and the two results together are often cited when his versatility is discussed. The Le Mans 24 Hours victory is covered in its own article.
Foyt’s career lasted for decades, and he became the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500 four times. He was known for a direct manner and for racing in several categories, including stock cars and sports cars as well as the open-wheel cars that were his specialty.
The Speedway in 1967
Indianapolis in 1967 was still the centre of American motor racing. The month of May involved weeks of qualifying and practice, and the race drew crowds that were counted in the hundreds of thousands. Open-wheel racing was changing, with rear-engined cars from Europe having replaced the older front-engined roadsters that had dominated through the 1950s. Jim Clark’s win in 1965 had been a landmark in that shift.
Formula One drivers also took part. Denny Hulme, who won the Formula One season championship in 1967, raced at Indianapolis that May, and the crossover between the two series was a feature of the decade.
Remembering the race
Retellings of the 1967 race sometimes treat it as a story about technology, and sometimes as a story about luck. It is both. Jones’s car was the most advanced on the grid, and it was beaten by a part that failed late. The winner drove well, took the chance when it came, and avoided a crash that could have ended his race.
The most reliable summary is that the race produced a deserving winner and an engineering curiosity that nearly won. In motor-racing history that combination is rare, and it is the reason the STP turbine car remains better known than many winners.