The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 11
ROY LUNN INDUCTED INTO AUTOMOTIVE HALL OF FAME
The man who led the Ford teams
that designed, engineered and devel-
oped the Ford GT40 that won LeMans
in 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 was in-
ducted into the Automotive Hall of
Fame in Dearborn, Michigan on July
21, 2016. Roy Lunn, an Englishman,
was the Assistant Chief Designer at
Aston Martin from 1947 to 1949 and
built the two DB2s that ran in the first
24-Hour LeMans race after WWII. In
1953 he joined Ford as product plan-
ning manager. Five years later he
moved to the U.S. and took the posi-
tion in Ford’s Central Advanced Engi-
neering.
Lunn became the head of the Ad-
vanced Vehicle Department and Ad-
vanced Concepts Group and headed
the project that developed the original
mid-engine Mustang I. When Henry
Ford decreed that Ford would beat
Ferrari and win LeMans, Lunn was
put in charge of GT40 engineering.
The results speak for themselves.
Roy Lunn left Ford in 1969 to be-
Don’t we all have a room like this?
Photos
by Marty Schorr.
come Vice President of Engineering at
Kar Kraft. He oversaw the production
of the Boss 429 and development of
Mustang concept cars mounting Boss
429 engines amidship.
In 1971 he was recruited by American
Motors as technical director and later
Chief Engineer of AMC. He served as
Chairman of the Society of Automotive
Engineers (SAE) in 1982-1983 and
was elected as a Fellow of the Society
in 1983. He retired from AMC in 1985
but his retirement was short-lived. He
joined AM General as Vice President
of Engineering, heading the HUMVEE
compliance program for the Pentagon.
He retired again in 1987. At 91, he
presently lives in Florida and contin-
ues to work on automotive projects.