The car now known to history as the Surtees TS5 began life as a project designed and built by Len Terry’s company for Roger Nathan. Once taken over by James Garner and John Surtees, it became the TS5 and after a difficult start, became one of the fastest F5000s of 1969.

Late in 1968, Roger Nathan announced that he would be entering the new Formula 5000 with a Len Terry designed car. Terry started the design but the project soon changed hands as James Garner’s American International Racers (AIR) team needed a car for US Formula A and did a deal with John Surtees’ fledgling operation to take over and manufacture the Nathan-Terry project. The first four cars were built at Len Terry’s Design Auto workshops in Poole with later cars being built at Surtees’ base at Slough and then at the team’s new premises at Edenbridge in Kent.

According to John Surtees autobiography, he originally just acted as an agent between Len Terry and James Garner. Just five cars were to be built with two to be run by Team Surtees in the 1969 UK series and two by Garner in the US series. Garner, with partners John Crean and Don Rabbit, had struck a deal with AMC to provide engines.

The car was rechristened the TS5 presumably for Terry-Surtees-5000, with the planned US cars being called Garner TS5. A prototype was tested in England by AIR driver Scooter Patrick during the winter and at the end of March 1969, Garner announced that his AIR team would be selling their Lola T70 Mark 3s and their new Can-Am Lola T162s to concentrate on the two-car TS5 Formula A team of David Hobbs and Scooter Patrick. However, the engines were behind schedule and when AIR’s first two cars arrived, in the middle of March, they had to be fitted with Chevrolet V8s. A four-day test was organised at Riverside 14-18 April with team drivers Patrick and Dave Jordan but both cars suffered suspension failures and Crean decided to terminate the relationship with Surtees and commission Dan Gurney to build Eagles instead. Shortly after this, AMC pulled out and the whole project dissolved.

With three or four cars now complete and a fifth on the way, Surtees continued with the project, running a pair of TS5s in the UK and another pair in the US as Team Surtees entries. The car soon became known as the Surtees TS5 and after early successes with the works cars, Surtees put the TS5 into production and soon made his first sale, Mike Goth buying the freshly-completed fifth car. However, only two more were built and the only sales were of second-hand cars in the US. One of these was to Garner who had parted company with AIR in August 1969 and ran a TS5 for Scooter Patrick.