HOW ITS TRICK SUSPENSION WORKS

Okay, this is where a complicated car gets even more complicated. The GT has pushrod suspension, where the pushrod acts on a rocker, which twists and calls upon two springs. One is a torsion bar, which has a certain spring rate; which then acts on a coil spring, which has a similar spring rate.

If the suspension is dropped, that’s done by compressing the coil spring and hydraulically locking it in position, taking it out of the equation. Then the only spring is the torsion rod, which, given it has roughly the same spring rate as the coil, doubles that rate. That’s one of the clever bits.

The other clever bit is the damper, which comes from Multimatic, which plays a far greater part in the GT programme than Ford shouts about: it makes the road cars, supports the racing cars and had a very large hand in development. It also patented and supplies Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve (DSSV) dampers, which half of the Le Mans grid and the Red Bull Formula 1 team have also used. They’re infernally complicated inside to explain but have a holed sleeve for oil to flow through and around, instead of a disc, and there are springs inside that, given different input speeds, allow oil to flow through at different rates — so can, say, give little damping in minor road ripples but more damping on big body movements.

And it does this while, technically, being passive — with no constant electronic control — although there are three different stiffness modes with the GT: Normal and Comfort in high ride height, and a stiffer mode in the lower, track-focused ride height.