The world was a vastly different place in 1957 and when you watch this video of an event that took place 60 years ago, you’ll agree with us. 1957 was the year that Danny Ames and Phil Remington were sent on at trip to drive around the world by the marketing department of the Ford Motor Company. They were sent on it in secret with the whole affair being called “Project X” and under murmurs and whispers they rolled out of Dearborn one 1957 morning and never looked back. Spearheaded by legendary Ford racing man Fran Hernandez, the point of the exercise was to create films and loads of content for advertising and all that stuff. They did that in spades.
What the film portrays is obviously not exactly how things went down. It was loads more than just Ames and Remington on the trip. They had a couple of support trucks with welders and all kinds of stuff on them. In fact one of the edicts from Ford would be that under very limited circumstances would the cars be allowed to look like anything other than brand new. These guys fixed stuff, painted stuff, welded stuff, and thrashed for months on end. It was an incredible production that would have failed miserably if Phil Remington was not on it.
Known as “Rem” to the legions of friends and co-workers he had over the years, Phil Remington will forever be considered one of the best empirical engineers and racing mechanics in history. He was a master metal worker, a master fabricator, a master hot rodder, and a person who’s hands were responsible for making the Shelby Cobra a race winner, the man responsible for making the GT40 program a success, the guy who basically designed and wind tunneled the Torino Talladega, and on and on and on. He worked for Dan Gurney for decades, designing critical systems on cars like the Delta Wing and others. But in 1957 Phil Remington had been helping guys like Lance Reventlow build his Scarab race cars and that brought him a load of notoriety in the world of racing. He was like McGuyver but eleventeen thousand percent better. He was basically the one man in the world with the managerial and mechanical skills, not to mention the sheer balls to pull this off.
As you watch the video you will see these guys weave through all these different countries, places where you literally cannot go through today without fear of death. In the late 1950s? Things sure LOOK like they were different back then. This trip was run basically a decade after WWII and while that is not mentioned, we find it interesting.
So there you have it. No watch the film!
