THE HISTORY OF ALL AMERICAN RACERS

All American Racers (AAR) has been in the racing business since 1965 when Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby, who were involved in a very successful and victorious relationship as a driver and team owner of Shelby Cobras and Shelby Fords, joined forces to establish a race car company together in Santa Ana, California with the backing of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

Prior to that point, Dan had a small shop in neighboring Costa Mesa, which was integrated into the new venture. While the two founders were still looking for an appropriate name for their new company, the then-president of Goodyear, ex-basketball champion Victor Holt, suggested All American Racers.

 It was at that time that Goodyear started their big involvement in auto racing on both the Formula 1 circuit (Dan was the first driver to race a Grand Prix car equipped with Goodyear tires) and the Indianapolis 500, which up to that point was mostly a Firestone arena. The cars AAR was designing and building were called Grand Prix or Indy Eagles, one of the many distinguishing features being a "beak" at the front of the car. Roger McCluskey became the first driver to achieve a victory in an Eagle at Langhorne, Pennsylvania in 1966.

Driver Dan Gurney introduces the first Indianapolis Eagle at the Santa Ana Country Club Spring 1966. A stuffed “real” Eagle on loan from the San Diego Museum of Natural History smiles with approval.

Eagle racing cars soon became very popular on both sides of the Atlantic and were driven by the hot drivers of the era like Jochen Rindt, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Ritchie Ginther, Lodovico Scarfiotti, James Hunt, Swede Savage, Bobby Unser, Al Unser, Al Junior, Mark Donohue, Joe Leonard, Wally Dallenbach, Gordon Johncock, Jerry Grant and many more. The crowning achievement in Formula 1 was Dan's victory at the 1967 Grand Prix of Belgium in Spa-Francorchamps. It was the first and only time in the 100 year history of Grand Prix racing that an American had driven a car of his own construction into the winner’s circle of a Formula One World Championship event. No one has since duplicated this effort and is unlikely to do so as it has become far too expensive for an individual and a small, independent race car company to attempt it.

Apart from fielding Formula 1 and Indy Car racing teams, AAR also entered at various times the U.S.-Sports car, Trans-Am, Can-Am, Formula A, Formula 5000 and Atlantic Series as well as IMSA championships with GTU and GTO Toyota Celicas and GTP with Toyota Eagles.

From its inception, AAR intended to build cars for its own racing teams and also for sale to customers. The first big reward came with a victory at the 'Indy 500' and the USAC National Championship in 1968 with Bobby Unser in a customer Eagle. In the following three decades All American Racers employed 66 drivers (see our driver gallery) who won 8 Championships, gathering 78 overall victories in races as varied as the Indy 500 (1975) and the Daytona 24 Hour endurance classic (1993) plus 83 pole positions. Eagle customers did equally well, winning championships in Indy cars, Formula Ford and Formula A categories. Twenty-one of the 33 cars on the grid at Indianapolis in 1973 were Eagles. Overall, AAR has built over 157 race cars.

IIn 1970, upon retiring from driving, Dan bought out Carroll Shelby and has been sole owner, CEO and Chairman of All American Racers ever since. In 2002 Dan made his son Justin, 32 at the time, General Manager of the company. AAR has been continuously modernized and expanded. The 75,000 sq. ft. factory encompasses five buildings. These house a state-of-the-art CAD design department, quality assurance, vehicle dynamics, data acquisition and analysis department, a development team and race shop, CNC machine shop, two 5-Axis mills, fabrication shop, 40% scale wind tunnel, water tunnel, an 800 degree/200psi electrically heated TEC autoclave and a complete composite material department where all race car bodies and chassis are built. Through the decades, AAR has employed between 20 and 140 people.

A part from building chassis, the company has been involved in building motorcycle prototypes, constructed Plymouth Barracudas for the Trans-Am series and adapted Lola sports cars for the Can-Am Championship. In 1983, AAR entered into a long term relationship with Toyota who started their involvement in big league motor racing at around that time.

First the team entered the GTU category of IMSA Sports Car Championship progressing from there to the GTO class capturing the Drivers and Manufacturers Championship in 1987. Subsequently, AAR designed and built the GTP Toyota Eagle, a car which would become legendary for its looks, speed, reliability and winning streaks: 17 consecutive victories during 1992 and 1993, two Drivers and two Manufacturers Championships, and wins in the endurance classics of Daytona and Sebring.

Up to 1988, All American Racers had its own engine department. Engines developed and built included Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler, Drake Offenhauser, Coventry Climax, Ford Cosworth, Toyota GTU and GTO and, on a trans-continental basis, work on the 12 cylinder Gurney-Weslake Grand Prix engine.

In 1996, after two years of preliminary development work, AAR re-entered the CART Indy Series. Some very difficult years in a highly competitive environment followed. The Toyota engine development took longer than anticipated by all parties involved and suffered many setbacks in terms of reliability and performance. AAR built various new Eagles for the Champcar circuit. It stayed loyal to Goodyear which in the end proved to be a mistake, as Goodyear did not put the resources into tire development to keep up with Firestone and withdrew from open wheel racing at the end of the 1999 season. At the same time Toyota withdrew their support for AAR, effectively ending a highly successful 17 year relationship, a major set back for the company at the time.

At the dawning of the new century AAR shut down its Champcar program due to inadequate funding, the Eagle no longer on the endangered species list, but now extinct. In the year 2000 AAR fielded a one car Atlantic Team with driver Alex Gurney (one pole, one podium). The team was dissolved at the end of the year, a poetic ending to AAR’s 35 year lasting racing involvement which started with a Gurney and ended with one. Many engineers, mechanics, designers and team managers who are working today in various racing series in the United States and Europe, went through the AAR "university" when they were youngsters starting out in their careers. Eagles are nowadays treasured and highly valued collector’s items and are found beautifully restored in private car collections as well as museums here and abroad.

Upon withdrawing from racing, AAR regrouped, restructured and modernized their facilities with an emphasis on industrial manufacturing. 90 people are employed at the present time (January 2011). In 2002 Dan Gurney introduced the Alligator motorcycle, a revolutionary single cylinder sports bike of which a first limited edition of 36 were built and sold. Development of further prototypes is ongoing. However AAR’s major business has successfully shifted to engineering projects contracted by the automotive, motorcycle and aviation industry.

Click here for the AAR Drivers Photo Gallery

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