GT40 (United Kingdom, 1964)

Ford presented the GT40 model for the first time in April 1963 in England and again, months later, in New York. This model, however, didn’t enter production until the end of 1965, when the road version was finally finalized. The Ford GT40 results from Henry Ford’s project of entering a Ford car into the Le Mans race, which he had been wanting for some time.

Henry Ford wanted his cars to compete with and beat the Ferraris so much that he let his company spend the biggest amount of money and resources that a carmaker had ever spent on one single car’s development. Ford’s racing division was then ordered to find a car builder that would conceive a car that could competitively race on endurance-racing events and beat the biggest adversaries.

The ‘GT’ in its name stands for ‘Grand Tourisme”, while the ‘40’ part of the name represents the height of the car – 40 inches (102 cm). In 1966 a new and improved GT40 generation would be released and a total of 85 Mk1 GT40 production units were produced.

The Mk1 Ford GT40 has a 4.7-liter Ford Fairlane V8 engine that is tuned to produce 335 hp on the roadgoing units and 380 hp on the racing trim cars. This model achieves its top speed at 164 mi/h (264 km/h) and takes 5.3 seconds to go from 0 to 60 mi/h.
A 5-speed ZF transmission is fitted onto the GT40’s mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.

Sheet-steel semi-monocoque with square tube stiffening.   Platform (no data)   Suspension Front unequal wishbones with coil springs, tubular shock absorbers and anti-roll bar; rear dual trailing arms with upper lateral links and reversed lower wishbones.   Steering Rack-and-pinion.   Brakes Front and rear Girling disc brakes.

The Mk1 Ford GT40 has one body style only, which is its coupe bodywork. A few prototype models, however, were made in a roadster version as well.

A Ford GT40 raced for the first time at the 1964 Nürburgring 1000 km race but it was not successful, having withdrawn from the competition due to suspension collapse.
On the following year, however, drivers Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby drove a GT40 at the Daytona 2000 km race and finished in first place.