It was around August 2001, and I was chatting with Ford Australia boss Geoff Polities at a company function – at the time business was very tough, Ford was on the ropes both in the showroom and on the racetrack. The General was clearly trouncing the blue oval brand in every direction and the expected company savour, the all-new BA Falcon, was still at least twelve months away.

I’d recently returned from Lord March’s popular Goodwood Festival of Speed and clearly one of the highlights was Ford Racing’s 100th anniversary celebrations, and in particular, the appearance of Henry Ford’s first race car, the 1901 Sweepstakes. This car had indeed put Henry Ford on the map on the 10th. October 1901 at Grosse Pointe, Michigan when in the first and only race he ever competed in he defeated Alexander Winton, one of the best and most successful racers in the country.

Such was the popularity of the win and the success so influential and well publicised that it was instrumental in laying the foundation stone of the Ford Motor Co. in the June of 1903 and of course the rest is history. I had come home from the U.K. in 2001 hoping I could convince Ford Australia to bring this superb piece of automotive history down under. Armed with some details of Sweepstakes I hoped to convince a cash-strapped corporation’s President that a little history could work wonders in publicity terms.

After all Ford Motor Co in the U.S. had all but forgotten this important piece of automotive history. That was until John Valentine, Chief Engineer at Ford Research and Vehicle Technology, thought it would be a great idea to get the car out of mothballs and run it at special events during the Ford Racing Centenary.

Clearly Polities showed real interest in my suggestion but at the time he had a lot more on his mind. “Leave it with me D.B, I think its got some merit but I need to find out if the U.S. will let us have it and talk to my marketing people to see if we in fact have any budget.” – obviously after more than five years in the sales wilderness Ford Australia did not have idle marketing money sitting around.

I went away hoping that something might come of it but of course it all hinged on whether the forthcoming BA Falcon could turn the local companies fortunes around. Eighteen months later I’d all but forgotten the Sweepstakes proposal and in February 2003 I was in Melbourne for the launch of Ford Performance Vehicles and more specifically the latest BA Falcon GT and GT/P models at historic Werribee Mansion. By this time the BA Falcon looked set to turn around Ford Australia’s fortunes – the newly crowned “Wheels Car of the Year” was beginning to quickly find favour on the showroom floor.

Polities was clearly in an ebullient mood – if FPR and Falcon could deliver on the racetrack during 2003 Ford was back in the winner’s circle in more ways than one. “By the way D.B. it looks like Sweepstakes is a goer – – bloody lot of money though, we’ve got to pay for two guys to come out with it.” I was somewhat taken by surprise by the casual nature of his confirmation but the man at the top of Ford Australia was clearly happy that he’d secured this special piece of automotive history - I was even happier. Even better news was that I would be allowed to drive it.

Fast forward to St. Ignatius College at Lane Cove in Sydney several days before that year’s Bathurst 1000 and I’m perched on top of Sweepstakes feeling very vulnerable to the elements. Beneath me is a transverse-mounted horizontally opposed flat two-cylinder engine of 8.8-litre capacity – at idle it feels every bit of 8.8 litres helped by a 609mm. cast iron flywheel weighing a healthy 136kg.

Sweepstakes keeper was Glenn Miller, a Ford development engineer seconded, when at that time, not working specifically on the powertrain of Ford’s latest GT40 supercar – a revival of the company’s 1960 Le Mans winner. As a long-standing enthusiast, he’s no stranger to veteran cars and personally owns a 1901 Geneva steam car, 1904 Sunset, 1908 American Simplex, 1908 Atlas, 1908 Cadillac and a 1912 7-litre seven-passenger Rambler.

The car I’m seated on is in fact an exact working replica of Sweepstakes, one of two commissioned by Ford along with a spare engine at a cost, according to Miller, of just under U.S.$1 million. Interestingly, the original Sweepstakes racer was purchased in 1902 by William C. Rands who kept in until the early 1930’s before offering it back to Henry Ford. Stored in a warehouse for some years it had been ravaged by fire and Ford had new bodywork built on it. It was subsequently used for promotional activity and put on display on and off in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan until 1987 when it was placed under wraps.

As the replacement bodywork did not resemble the original car museum personnel had believed it must be a replica built in the 1930’s. However, when Glenn Miller and Malcolm Collum, conservator at the Henry Ford Museum, took the car out of mothballs and removed the body they found it was the original Sweepstakes and in remarkable condition. Apart from building the two replicas the task was to sympathetically restore and refurbish the original for permanent display in the process.

According to Miller “The replicas are amazingly faithful – Henry used whatever parts were lying around, he may have used hexagonal nuts in one part and square nuts in another. We copied them exactly. There were no patterns or blueprints – so as the original was carefully disassembled and catalogued duplicate parts were manufactured. Miller personally fabricated the wooden bodies in his home workshop with the aid of detailed contemporary photos supplied by the museum.

Work on the replicas actually began in January 2001 with the aim to have both cars running by the June with a team from Ford Special vehicle Engineering joining specialist fabrication company Trakon Show and Display. Two dozen personnel worked 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week before the first replica’s engine burst into life on the 24th May. On the 7TH June Edsel Ford 11 drove the first replica at a special ceremony at Greenfield Village in Dearborn.

Such was the tightness of the schedule that Glenn Miller waited at the airport the night before for the special treadless white tyres to arrive from Vietnam. Special moulds for the 36 x 4-inch tyres had to be made in America to the pattern of the original Diamond Rubber Company. Importantly, the Henry Ford Museum did not want the Sweepstakes replicas to look mass-produced and special attention was paid to ensuring they had the same hand-built quality of the original. To this end the “age finish” and attention to detail is remarkable.

Only concessions made include the fitment of a concealed electric fan to boost cooling of the somewhat inefficient gill tube radiator during slow running and the incorporation of a small scavenger pump in the sump to aid oil circulation. The cars frame is made of lightweight Ash wood reinforced with steel plates suspended on semi-elliptic leaf springs, the engine sitting relatively low in the frame. All up weight is nearly a tonne and little wonder with a bore and stroke of 178mm (7-inches) the massive cast iron pistons and cast iron block are far from light.

Despite its huge capacity the large “twin” puts out just 19kW of power at a maximum 900 revs. Valves are mechanical exhaust and atmospheric inlet, fuel induced via a sliding-plate “vaporiser”, a clever form of mechanical fuel injection designed by Henry, throttled by varying the amount of intake valve opening. The ignition system is itself innovative, designed by Ed Huff, Ford’s riding mechanic, and it features a wasted spark system firing on both compression and exhaust strokes, much like the distributorless coil-on-plug systems of today. Porcelain insulators on the spark plugs were also employed by Huff on this car for the very first time.

Final drive is by a heavy central chain to a differential in the rear axle via a two-speed planetary gearbox incorporating first and reverse. Top gear is activated by lever via a metal-to-metal clutch that operates within the engine flywheel. With such powerful low-down torque and a final drive ratio of 1.56 to 1 when you pull the lever back into top gear Sweepstakes immediately assumes a powerful gait.

On such large tyres and with minimal braking from external contracting bands on rear brass drums this really is a beast to control at a steady pace. Progress is adjusted via a hand throttle between the front seats and what with ignition and throttle control, hand braking, gear changing and the oiling system the driver is active to say the least. One assumes that apart from counterbalancing the car whilst riding on the left running board Huff’s principal job must have been to operate the spark advance and tend the six-drip oiling system when required.

You sit on rather than in Sweepstakes and such is the rapid and torquey nature of this early racecar you immediately feel like Toad of Toad Hall. The original was timed at 72 mph (116km/hour), not bad when you consider the Land Speed Record at the time stood at 65.8mph (105km/hour). Miller achieved 60mph (96 km/hour) on the replica at Laguna Seca Historic races last year.

My short drive was certainly at lower speeds but fast enough to tell that given its full head this really was an impressive performer for its day – a car that captured the attention of then industry leaders like Alexander Winton, Ransom E. Olds and Frank Duryea to name just a few and put Henry Ford on the road to automotive success.

He would acknowledge many years later “I never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to think about the automobile as anything but a fast toy. Therefore, we had to race.”