The \u201cEagles Have Landed\u201d exhibit honoring Dan Gurney at LA\u2019s Petersen Automotive Museum opened last Friday night with a reception at the museum. A full house heard welcoming comments from the museum\u2019s executive director Terry Karges before board member Charles Nearburg, in whose Family Gallery the Eagles are being displayed, provided a retrospective of Gurney\u2019s career. Finally, the crowd heard from Dan Gurney himself.<\/p>\n
The exhibit includes a dozen racing cars created by Gurney\u2019s All American Racers organization since 1966, as well as one of Dan\u2019s groundbreaking Alligator motorcycles. The cars displayed include: the 1967 Eagle-Weslake Formula One car (above) with which Gurney won that year\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa; the 1968 Eagle-Gurney-Weslake Ford Indycar in which he finished 2nd<\/sup> in the Indianapolis 500 and subsequently won the Rex Mays 300 at Riverside; the 1968 Eagle-Offy that carried Bobby Unser to victory in that year\u2019s Indy 500; Dan\u2019s 1969 McLeagle, an AAR-modified McLaren Can-Am car he used to challenge the dominant McLaren factory team; the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda for the Trans-Am series that Dan drove in the final competitive outing of his career; the 1971 Eagle-Offy Indycar that works driver Bobby Unser took to seven pole positions and a pair of wins that season; the 1972 Olsonite Eagle-Offy with which Unser shattered the qualification records at Indianapolis in taking pole for that year\u2019s 500; the 1975 Jorgensen Eagle-Offy that brought Unser a second victory at Indy; a 1978 Eagle DGF like that driven by David Loring to the SCCA National Formula Ford Championship; the 1981 Pepsi Challenger Eagle-Chevrolet with which Mike Mosley took a stunning triumph in Milwaukee that year; the 1992-1993 Eagle MKIII-Toyota GTP entry that, in the hands of Juan Manuel Fangio II and PJ Jones, dominated IMSA Camel GT competition on the way to back-to-back double championships for drivers, Fangio, and constructors, AAR; and an example of the final Eagle Indycar built from 1999, Robby Gordon\u2019s Eagle 997.<\/p>\n