P104 A one-off Ferguson Formula Racing Car project that became a
‘Sleeping Beauty’ (Part 2)
Story told and written by Henri Greuter, edited by Chris Maugham
This article is dedicated to the memory of Bill Munro
In the final practice session for the race there were engine troubles, forcing the team into a major engine overhaul. That appeared to have gone well when Unser managed to keep P104 in the front of the field during the early part of the race itself. But trouble struck after 69 laps when an oil line came loose and the team was forced to retire from the race, for a final 19th place classification.
This turned out to be the end of the racing career of the P104. The following year there was one more attempt with a Novi powered car, based around the lightweight chassis with P120 components. But despite a staggering power amount of over 800hp, that car could not be qualified for the race by driver Greg Weld who put the car in the wall on the final day of qualifying after a more than troublesome period of practice.
The Ferguson Formula P104 had earned the distinction to have been the chassis that had housed a Novi V8 engine in what were the last ever laps in the Indy 500 for one of these legendary engines. It can be argued that it had achieved the mission to prove the merits of 4WD and give the powerful Novi V8 a better chance to cope with tyre wear. However, the improvements had been marginal and not enough to give the big V8 a chance to fight off the rear engine revolution that was taking place at Indy at the same time. What didn’t help either was a tyre war between Goodyear and Firestone that brought such big improvements in tyre developments that were more beneficial for the opponents of the Novis than for the ‘big brutes’. Another important contribution P104 gave to the efforts of the Granatelli racing team was invaluable experience with 4WD that was used in later very spectacular Indy entries by the Granatelli brothers.
The P104 faded from sight after retiring from active duty. It took some 18 years before the car came back to sight again and became part of another big project before returning to the dark yet again. During that period of time to some extent, P104 entered my life.
You might be wondering, by now, who is the author who spoke to Andy Granatelli, and the ‘me’ whose life P104 got into briefly?
My name is Henri Greuter. I am a Dutchman who, in early 1988, had the fortune that the American writer George Peters realised that I was enough of a fan of the Novis, and knew quite a lot about their ‘Legend’, that I could be a useful partner for him in a project that eventually resulted in the publication of two books about the engines and cars powered by them and the men behind all that. I also had the honour and pleasure to be of some help for Bill Munro and Pat Turner when they wrote their book Traction for Sale.
About one of the earliest rumours about the fate of P104 after its career had come to an end was the story that components within the driveline of the Novi had been used in the legendary 1967 STP turbine car #40. Strangely enough, most of the time it was assumed that it had been P104 that had donated its driveline components to the Paxton-Pratt & Whitney car. A suggestion that seemed to be supported by the statement of Andy Granatelli’s son Vince to me in 1988 that the 1965 built lightweight chassis had been trashed. Other first-hand information I got also hinted about the use of P104 components in the 1967 Turbine car. Later on it became clear to me that this had not been the case after all and that I had to rewrite the history of the later years of P104.
Some documentation in print about P104 appeared in 1983 in the American magazine Autoweek. In an article it was told how people in the City of Novi had got the idea to promote their town by trying to obtain a Novi race car. They had contacted Andy Granatelli and after a while they worked out a deal in which step by step the city could take over the remaining engine hardware as well as one of the cars Granatelli still owned, the 1964 built 4WD car. This was not one of the cars once owned by Novi citizen Lew Welch. All of those (five) cars were out of reach or not even in existence anymore. The P104 was still a genuine Novi and one of the most interesting cars built in the 60’s for Indy, thus worth going for.
Then, in 1986 the very same magazine mentioned the City of Novi had started with plans for creating a Motor Racing Hall of Fame. The article also mentioned that an engine-less but otherwise fresh-looking Ferguson-Novi P104 was seen as well as no less than five original Novi engines.
I was at Indianapolis for the first time in my life in 1988 and on Friday May 13th I met one of the few people still alive who had been part of the Novi team in the years of first owner Lew Welch; mechanic and jack-of-all-trades James Bell Gardner, better known under his nickname ‘Radio’ Gardner. When I met him again two days later he was angry with me. As I had not been around the day before I had spoiled a surprise he had organised for me and as a result of that someone living in Michigan missed out on meeting a man who was restoring the Ferguson P104 and also owned the leftovers of another Novi that he was also restoring. The man had left some pictures with ‘Radio’ for me and looking these over I realised what a unique opportunity I had missed.
My host, with whom I was staying while at Indy, and I went home utterly disappointed that evening. But once home a string of events that we could not have dreamed up occurred!
Bobby Unser practising with the Ferguson P104. The black box located on the rollhoop by the drivers head is a film camera that registered the measurements on the different tachos and instruments on the dashboard. The Granatell brothers wanted to verify what their drivers told them!
Photo Copyright: First Turn Productions LLC, used with permission
Henry Ford endorsed the construction of 10 front wheel driven chassis built by famed car
builder Harry Miller between March and May 1935, all powered by Ford Flathead V8 engines.
Nine cars were finished in time to make it to the track and only 4 drivers managed to qualify. All
of them retired from the race with the same failure, a poor designed steering arrangement, being
too close to an exhaust. All the lubrication grease was lost and the steering ‘froze’ solid. This is
the 10th car, not finished in time and is located in the Henry Ford Museum. Henri Greuter
The 1946 Novi nowadays resides within the Brumos Collection in Florida. It is repainted in the
1952 colours. This is how Chet Miller drove the car that year, and was the fastest qualifier for
the race but due to regulations started in 30th place. Since qualifying at Indy is based on the
average over 4 laps, and no other front wheel driven car ever went faster than Miller in 1952.
It still holds the record for the fastest ever front driven car at Indianapolis! Henri Greuter
The second front wheel driven Novi has been in the possession of the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway Museum since around 1960. Shortly before he went bankrupt Lew Welch
donated the car to the Museum, though without an operational engine. Somewhere between
1983 and 1988 the car was restored as close as was possible into its 1948 configuration.
The year when Duke Nalon finished third, the best ever finish for any Novi. Thanks to the
tremendous popularity of the Novis, this car was for a long time one of the few non-racewinning
cars on near permanent display on the Museum floor. Henri Greuter
In 1953, the car looking like in this picture, driver Chet Miller crashed fatally in this Novi
which was then retired and cannibalised. Restoration was finished in 1998, originally back
into the 1953. Sitting in the car is the then current owner who restored the rolling chassis,
Robert ‘Buck’ Boudeman. During his life, Boudeman made it to the Goodwood Festival of
Speed on several occasions with this car. Henri Greuter
That very same evening my friend was called by a friend of his in Texas, a man who would be staying with us as well from the next weekend on. My friend told his Texan friend how it had been for him to drag a Dutchman around (fortunately, he had some fun with that!) and then also told about what we had missed out on that very same afternoon. The Texan then replied that he was in touch with someone in Michigan who claimed to have Novi hardware and had been invited to come over and have a look at it. But the Texan didn’t believe that story, knowing how rare Novi hardware was. To which my friend replied that we had missed out on someone from Michigan who had left us pictures of what was most definitely Novi hardware. He and his Texan friend concluded that the chance that there were two different men in Michigan who each owned Novi hardware was close to zero.
After describing what was visible on our pictures, the Texan went wild because we were describing one thing that as far as he knew could not exist anymore according to all known data. He then told us that he had to verify a few things but wanted to make a phone call with his contact. This because the Texan would come over for the race and be with us in Indiana too in the week before the race. But since for his standards he would then be close to Michigan, if the invitation was still valid, he wanted to visit his Michigan contact in that week. And if it was indeed as we assumed the same man we had missed out on, he wanted to ask permission to bring us along. While the Texan called Michigan, my host and I were in sheer disbelief about the entire situation.
It turned out that we had indeed missed out on meeting the same person as the Texan had been in touch with. After a telephone conversation by the Texan and suitable explanations an appointment was made for us all to meet car restorer Robert ‘Buck’ Boudeman at his shop in Michigan on Monday May 24th 1988.
First cursing your fate for having missed someone yesterday at noon, then go to bed with the knowledge you are going to meet him and see with own eyes what you had only seen on a few pictures before going to bed. Sometimes the truth can be stranger that you can imagine! When we did meet Buck Boudeman at his facilities the three of us were given a lot of confidential information we were not supposed to talk about for a long time. Buck was in possession of what was left of what was believed, by the wider world, to be a no longer existing car: the remains of the very first genuine Novi, built in 1946. This front wheel driven (!) car had been used for the last time in 1953 but had been parked and cannibalised for parts after driver Chet Miller had a fatal accident in the car. Miller was the second driver to be killed in that very same chassis, Ralph Hepburn had been the first in 1948. How the chassis had survived remained undisclosed. Boudeman had been collecting parts to restore the car eventually, but an engine was not obtainable for a long time. All of the engines were with the Granatelli brothers and for a long time they have had no intention to let any of them go out of their possession. However, once the City of Novi had got hold of the inventory, things changed for the good.
Owning the engineless car, but also the engines to complete it, the City of Novi wanted to have P104 up and running again. Boudeman informed me that he and the City of Novi had made the arrangement that he would finish this restoration of P104 for them for which in return he would receive the parts within the inventory that he needed to restore his FWD chassis. But P104 had the priority. At Boudeman’s shop I did not see what was to become the engine for his car, but rather work on the dual ignition 2.8 litre engine that was to be installed in the Ferguson which was taking place at the time. The engine was there, not entirely omplete, but I could see it.
This is the Novi engine destined to be installed in the restored Ferguson P104. Standing next to the engine is Robert ‘Buck’ Boudeman who did the work. Henri Greuter
Despite being of only 2.8 litre capacity, the Novi V8 is a massive, big, heavy piece of equipment. The dual plug ignition is the same as that used on the 1954 and 1955 Mercedes F1 engines. Henri Greuter
The restoration of P104 was finished in March 1989 and there is video evidence of the car being fired up and Buck Boudeman taking it out on the streets of his hometown!
The plans for a Motorsports Hall of Fame were indeed realised and such a facility was located in Novi, Michigan for a while. The P104 found residence in the Hall of Fame, but the car occasionally went out for demonstration laps at various locations across the USA.
Over the years I visited Buck Boudeman on several occasions and followed his progress with the restoration of his 1946 FWD Novi, but that was a tardy job delayed by all kind of other projects he was involved with. For one reason or another, I somehow never managed to visit Novi and the Motorsport Hall of Fame and see the restored P104.
Then P104 re-entered my life in the Summer of 1996. Part 3 next issue.
Published in Journal No. 113, Summer 2025, Henri Greuter