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The Ford GT was a sports car and winner of the 24 hours
of Le Mans four times in a row, from 1966 to 1969. It was built to win
long-distance sports car races against Ferrari (who won at Le Mans six
times in a row from 1960 to 1965).
The car was named the GT after the Grand Tourisme category it was intended
to compete in and its overall height of 40 inches (1.02 m, measured at the
windshield) as required by the rules. Large-capacity Ford V8 engines (4.7
L and 7 L) were used, compared with the Ferrari V12 which displaced 3.0 L
or 4.0 L.
Early cars were simply named "Ford GT" the name GT40 was a nickname only
and associated with the production of the stock Mk. 1.
The contemporary Ford GT is a modern homage to the GT40.
Henry Ford II had wanted a Ford at Le Mans since the early 1960s.
Initially, Ford attempted to buy Ferrari. Much to the surprise of Ford who
expected long negotiations, the proposal was welcomed by Enzo Ferrari. A
deal had been all but agreed on when Ferrari called the merger off in
1963, after an agreement with Fiat that gave some financial backing to
Ferrari, while preserving Ferrari's independence.
Ford had been manipulated to raise the bids with Fiat, and a frustrated
Henry Ford II decided to produce his own car instead. To this end Ford
began negotiation with Lotus, Lola, and Cooper. Cooper had no experience
in GT or prototype and its performances in Formula One were declining.
Lotus was already a Ford partner for their Indy 500 project. Ford
executives already doubted the ability of Lotus to handle this new
project. Colin Chapman probably had similar views as he asked a high price
for his contribution and insisted that the car should be named Lotus and
not Ford, an attitude that can be viewed as polite refusal.
The Lola proposal was chosen, since Lola had used a Ford V8 engine in
their mid-engined Lola Mk 6 (also known as Lola GT). It was one of the
most advanced racing cars of the time, and made a noted performance in Le
Mans 1962, even if the car didn't finish. However, Broadley agreed on a
short-term personal contribution to the project without involving Lola
cars.
The agreement with Lola cars manager Eric Broadley included a one year
collaboration between Ford and Broadley and the sale of the two Lola Mk 6
chassis built to Ford. To form the development team, Ford also hired the
already ex-Aston Martin team manager John Wyer. Ford Motor Co. engineer
Roy Lunn was sent to England. Lunn had designed the mid-engined Mustang 1
concept car powered by a 1.7 L V4. Despite the small engine of the Mustang
1, Lunn was the only Dearborn's engineer to have some experience with a
mid-engined car.
Broadley, Lunn and Wyer began working on the new car at Lola Factory in
Bromley. At the end of 1963 the team moved to Slough, England near
Heathrow airport. Ford established a new subsidiary under the direction of
Wyer, Ford Advanced Vehicles Ltd to manage the project.
The first chassis built by Abbey Panels of Coventry was delivered on March
16, 1963. The first "Ford GT" the GT/101 was unveiled in England on April
1st and soon after exhibited in New York.
The car was powered by the 4.2 L Fairline engine with a Colotti transaxle,
the same power plant was used by the Lola GT and the single-seater Lotus
29 that came in a highly controversial second at the Indy 500 in 1963. (A
DOHC head design was used in later years at Indy. It won in 1965 in the
Lotus 38.)
The Ford GT was first raced in May 1964 at the Nürburgring 1000 km race
and later at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and was not very successful with all
three cars retiring. The experience gained then and in 1965 allowed the Mk
II to dominate the race in 1966 with a 1-2-3 finish. New Zealand drivers
Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon drove the winning Ford GT. Ken Miles was
leading at the end of the race when the Ford team, desiring a publicity
photo of the three GT40s crossing the finish line together, ordered him to
slow down until he was only leading the second place car, driven by
McLaren and Amon, by half a car length at the checkered flag. Unknown to
Ford, however, the scoring system at Le Mans takes into account the
differing distances covered by the cars due to differing positions on the
starting grid, and so the McLaren-Amon car, having started further back,
became the official winner. Miles was thus denied his deserved unique
achievement of winning Sebring, Daytona, and Le Mans in the same year, the
last before his death.
The Mk IV, a newer design with a Mk II engine but a different chassis and
a different body, won the following year (when four Mark IVs, three Mark
IIs and three Mark Is raced).
After a rules change for 1968 which limited the capacity of prototypes to
3.0 L (same as in Formula One), but allowed a maximum of 5.0 L capacity
for the Sports category (where at least 50 cars had been built), a revised
4.7 L Mk I won the 24 hours of Le Mans race in 1968 against the fragile
smaller prototypes. In 1969, facing more experienced prototypes and the
new yet still unreliable 4.5 L flat-12 powered Porsche 917s, the winners
Ickx/Oliver managed to beat the remaining 3.0 L Porsche 908 by just a few
seconds with the already outdated GT40 (the same actual car which had won
in 1968). Apart from brake wear in the Porsche and the decision not to
change pads so close to the race end, the winning combination was relaxed
driving by both GT40 drivers and heroic efforts at the right time by (at
that time Le Mans' rookie) Jacky Ickx, who would win Le Mans 5 times more
in later years. In 1970, the revised Porsche 917 dominated and the GT40
became obsolete.
The Mk I is the original Ford GT40. Early prototypes were by powered by
4.2 L (255 in³) engines; production models were powered by 4.7 L (289 in³)
engines, also used in the Ford Mustang. Some prototype models had a
roadster bodywork.
The Ford X1 was a roadster built to contest the Fall 1965 North American
Pro Series, a forerunner of the CanAm, it was entered by Bruce McLaren
team and driven by Chris Amon. The car had an aluminum chassis build at
Abbey Panels and was originally powered by a 4.5 L (289ci) engine. The
real purpose of this car was to test several improvements originating from
either Kar Kraft, Shelby or McLaren. Several gearboxes were used, a
Hewland LG500 and at least one but more probably several automatic
gearboxes. It was later upgraded specification to the Mk II with a 7.0 L
(427ci) engine and a standard four ratio Kar Kraft gearbox, however car
kept specific features like its open roof and lightweight chassis. The car
went on winning the 12H of Sebring 1966.
The Mk II used the 7.0 L (427 in³) engine from the Ford Galaxie.
For Daytona 1967, two Mk II models (chassis 1016 and 1047) were branded
Mercury 7.0 L. Mercury is a Ford Motor Company division, and this was only
a cosmetic change. It made no difference anyway as Ferrari won 1-2-3.
The Mk III was a road-car only, of which 31 were built. The car had four
headlights, the rear part of the body was expanded to make room for
luggage, the 4.7 L engine was detuned to 335 bhp, the shocks were
softened, the shift lever was moved to the center and the car was
available with the steering wheel on the left side of the car. The most
famous Mk III is GT40 M3 1105, a blue left hand drive model delivered in
1968 in Austria to Herbert von Karajan. As the Mk III wasn't very
appealing aesthetically (it looked significantly different to the racing
models), many customers interested in buying a GT40 for road use chose to
buy a Mk I that was available from Wyer ltd in a street version.
In an effort to develop a car with better aerodynamics and lighter weight,
it was decided to retain the 7 liter engine essentially unchanged, but
redesign the rest of the car. In order to bring the car more "in house"
and less of a partnership with English firms, Ford Advanced Vehicles was
sold to John Wyer and the new car was designed by Ford's design studios
and produced by Ford's subsidiary Kar Kraft under Ed Hull, in partnership
with the Brunswick Aircraft Corporation for expertise on the novel use of
honeycomb aluminium panels bonded together to form a lightweight but rigid
"tub". The car would make a full use of the new and more liberal the FIA's
Appendix J regulations for race car construction , and was therefore known
as the J-car.
The first J-car was completed in March, 1966 and set the fastest time at
the LeMans trials that year; the tub weighed only 86 lb, and the entire
car weighed only 2660 lb, 300 lb less than the Mk II. It was decided to
run the MkIIs with their proved reliability, however, and little or no
development was done on the J-car for the rest of the season. The next
year development was back on, and a second car was built; during high
speed testing, the car became airborne and went off the road. The
honeycomb chassis did not live up to its design goal, shattering into
myriads of pieces upon impact, and the wreck immediately burst into
flames, killing the team's most successful driver, Ken Miles. It was
decided that the unique, flat-topped "bread van" aerodynamics of the car,
lacking any sort of spoiler, were implicated in generating excess lift,
and a more conventional but significantly more aerodynamic than the Mk II
body was designed for the Mk IV. [1] The new body was 15 mph faster than
the Mk II on the Mulsanne Straight.
The Mk IV was build around a reinforced J chassis powered by the same 7.0
L engine as the Mk II. Excluding the engine, the Mk IV was totally
different from other GT40s, using a specific chassis and specific
bodywork.
The Ford G7A was a Canam car using the J chassis. Unlike the earlier
Mk.I,II and III cars,which were entirely British,the Ford J and mk.IV were
built in America by Shelby.
The major difficulty of course was the expulsion of the ford GT40 from the
le mans in 1970
Early chassis (commonly named prototype chassis) are branded GT and have a
three-digit number (GT 101 to GT 112). Among these chassis, at least two
were made of aluminium, one was number 110 used on the X1.
Production chassis are branded GT 40 P (P for Production) and have a
four-digit number (GT 40 P 1000 to GT 40 P 1086 and GT 40 P 1108 to 1114).
Prototype chassis and production chassis were built by Abbey Panels. Two
Mark I lightweight chassis were build by Alan Mann Racing. They are
numbered AM GT 1 and AM GT 2, and these chassis incorporate panels in
elektron light alloy.
Mk IIs were built on a Mk I chassis with additional strengthening using
random prototype or production chassis numbers, with the notable exception
of the ex-X1 GT/110 build on an Abbey Panels lightweight chassis. However,
as other Ford partners were overworked at that time, three chassis
numbered XGT 1 to XGT 3 were built by Alan Mann Racing for Le Mans 1966.
Unlike Alan Mann's Mark Is chassis, these chassis did not show any
significant difference from those built by Abbey Panels for Kar Kraft.
GT40 Mk IIIs used chassis numbers GT 40 M3 1101 to GT 40 M3 1107.
Ford J, GT 40 Mark IV and G7A used J chassis twelwe chassis numbered J1 to
J12 were built. J1 to J4 were build to J specification. J3 and J4 were
later converted to the MkIV specications. J5 to J8 were build directly for
the MkIV. J9 and J10 were build for the G7A. Some J11 and J12 were
replacement chassis. A MkIV replica has been build around the J11 chassis.
Ford GT chassis numbers continue from the point that GT40 stopped.
At the 1995 Detroit Motor Show, the Ford GT90 concept was shown and at the
2002 Detroit Auto Show, a new GT40 Concept was unveiled by Ford, similar
to the original cars, but bigger, wider, and especially taller than the
original 40 inches (1.02 m), so it might instead have been named GT43.
Three production prototypes car were shown 2003 as part of Ford's
centenary, and delivery of the production Ford GT began in the fall of
2004. A British company "Safir Engineering" who made "continuation" GT40's
in the 1980's owned the GT40 trademark at that time, and when they
completed production, they sold the excess parts, tooling, design, and
tradmark to a small Ohio company that calls itself Safir GT40 Spares.
Safir GT40 Spares licensed the use of the GT40 tradmark to Ford for the
initial 2002 show car, but when Ford decided to make the production
vehicle, negotiations between the two failed, and as a result the new Ford
GT does not wear the badge GT40. It is rumored that Safir asked 40 million
dollars for the rights, but this has never been verified.
In November 2005 a Ford GTX1, a roadster version of the Ford GT was
unveiled in Las Vegas. The $38,000 aftermarket conversion is performed by
Genaddi Design Group (www.GTX1.com) but approved by Ford.
Click Here
to see lots of pictures of the conversion.
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