J.W. Automotive

John Wyer (11 December 1909 in Kidderminster, England – 8 April 1989 in Scottsdale, Arizona, US) was an English automobile racing engineer and team manager. He is mainly associated with cars running in the light blue and orange livery of his longtime sponsor Gulf Oil.

As team manager and team owner, Wyer won the 24 Hours of Le Mans several times. His first victory came in the 1959 edition, in his tenth anniversary as Aston Martin team manager, along with Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby, win with the DBR1. The team made their base for Le Mans at the Hotel De France from 1953 - 1975. The race cars would be tended within the courtyard and garage adjacent to the hotel before being driven to and from the circuit on the road for practice, qualifying and the race.

The team also won the 1000 km Nürburgring over three consecutive years.

In 1963 he left Aston Martin for Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) In 1964. After dismal results with the GT40s in their first two years, mainly dealing with reliability due to mechanical failure, the Ford GT40 programme was handed over to Holman Moody and Carroll Shelby to compete against Ferrari, with the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans victory being the most famous, as well as 1967.

Ford closed FAV after the 1966 season, and John Wyer and John Willment formed J.W. Automotive Engineering Ltd (JWA) to take over the Slough factory and continued to build production GT40s on Ford's behalf. As Wyer was the well known team manager and present at race tracks, it was assumed that JW stands for John Wyer even though it is for John Willment, as stated by Willment's brother-in-law Hans Herrmann.

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