John Wyer was an English team manager and engineer who had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Aston Martin in 1959 and later managed the Ford GT40 programme through Ford Advanced Vehicles. When Ford closed that operation after 1966, Wyer and John Willment formed J.W. Automotive Engineering to continue running the GT40 in private hands, with backing from Gulf Oil's team manager J-O Bockman. Under Gulf sponsorship, JWA's GT40s won the 1968 and 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans — the 1968 win driven by Pedro Rodríguez and Lucien Bianchi, the 1969 win by Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver — despite the cars being significantly older than the factory opposition.
As the GT40 became obsolete under changing regulations, Porsche identified JWA as its ideal factory partner for the new 917. Porsche had developed the 5-litre 917 as a homologation special, but in 1969 the car was still unreliable and prone to instability. Wyer's team played a crucial role in developing the 917K — the short-tail Kurzheck configuration — whose wedge-shaped tail transformed the car's aerodynamic stability compared to the original long-tail version.
The JWA Gulf-Porsche 917s ran in the distinctive light blue and orange livery that Gulf Oil had established with the GT40 programme. For the 1970 World Sportscar Championship season, the team fielded cars for Jo Siffert, Brian Redman, Leo Kinnunen, Pedro Rodríguez, Richard Attwood, Herbert Mueller, and Derek Bell. JWA-entered cars won seven of Porsche's nine victories across the ten-race 1970 season, with the competing Ferrari 512s and other Porsche entrants accounting for the remainder.
The 1971 season continued at a similar level, with JWA cars taking five of Porsche's eight victories across eleven races. The team's best Le Mans result during this period was second place in 1971; the 917's outright speed was never matched by sufficient reliability over the full 24 hours in the JWA entries. However, in Steve McQueen's 1971 film Le Mans, a Gulf-Porsche 917K was depicted winning the race, cementing the Gulf colour scheme's status in popular culture.
The JWA Gulf-Porsche programme attracted many of the foremost sports car drivers of the era. Pedro Rodríguez was among the team's most consistent performers until his death in a sports car race in 1971. Jo Siffert, Brian Redman, and Jacky Ickx also drove for the team at various points, with Derek Bell beginning an association with both Gulf and Porsche that would extend across his subsequent career.
The regulations permitting 5-litre sports cars were limited to 1971. Porsche withdrew from European-style sportscar racing with the 917 to focus on Can-Am and turbocharged engine development. Wyer adopted the new 3-litre prototype regulations and built Gulf-Mirage cars using Cosworth DFV Formula One engines, continuing his association with Gulf Oil. This programme produced Wyer's final Le Mans victory in 1975, driven by Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell. Wyer retired from motorsport in 1976.
The Gulf-Porsche identity from 1970–1971 has exercised an influence on racing aesthetics far exceeding its brief competitive span. The light blue and orange palette, applied to some of the fastest and most dramatic racing cars ever produced, became a reference point for livery design that manufacturers and sponsors continue to invoke. Porsche has repeatedly revived Gulf-themed colourways on heritage and commemorative cars, and the 917K in Gulf colours remains among the most reproduced historic racing images in the world.