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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.
 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, Gordon Johncock, Jerry Grant and many more. The crowning
achievement in Formula 1 was Dan's victory at the Grand Prix of Belgium
in 1967. It was the first victory by an American driver in an American
car since 1921 and the only one in modern Grand Prix history. 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 do so. 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 150 race
cars.
In 1970, upon retiring from driving, Dan bought out Carroll Shelby and
has been sole owner, CEO and Chairman of All American Racers ever since.
Under his guidance, 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,
winning 10 races and progressing from there to the GTO class capturing
the Drivers Championship (Chris Cord) and the 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 Championship after a 10-year absence from that circuit with
drivers Juan Manuel Fangio II and P.J. Jones as a development team. Upon
Juan Manuel Fangio's retirement from racing, Alex Barron came on board,
later joined by various other drivers.
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
blow, from which the company is trying to recover. So at the dawning of
the new century, AAR had to shut down its Champcar program due to
inadequate funding, the Eagle no longer on the endangered species list,
but extinct - for the time being. In 2000 AAR fielded a one car Atlantic
Team with driver Alex Gurney (one pole, one podium). The team was
dissolved after the driver received an offer to race in the British F3
Series in 2001.
Throughout its 35-year history,
AAR has occupied a special niche among race car companies. Not only does
the company provide a link to the "glory days" of racing, but
at the same time, manages to be on the cutting edge of technology:
looking back to the past with fondness, but keeping an eye firmly on the
future. The combination of Dan Gurney as a driver and owner, and his
perseverance in building his own race cars, often against great odds,
(Eagles for years were the only American made racecar on the scene), has
won many loyal fans around the world spanning two generations. A lot of
engineers, mechanics, designers and team managers, now on the CART
circuit, went through the AAR "university" when they were
young and starting out - a tradition which continues today.
Click here for the AAR
Drivers Photo Gallery
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