FORD GT40s
This unique gathering proves that, when it came to turning the Le Mans legend into a road car, the world simply wasn’t ready
It’s car marketing’s oldest maxim: ‘Win on Sunday, sell on Monday’. Yet, when Ford tried to sell the original GT40 as a roadgoing version, it failed. From 1966 until 1969, the Ford GT40 was unbeatable at Le Mans. In 1967, the roadgoing GT40 MkIII was one of the fastest cars you could buy, with a claimed top speed of 175mph – yet only seven were made, and Ford couldn’t even sell all of those, so it kept the remainder as high-profile company cars. How could people not want one of their own?
To understand, we need to go back a few years. The recent blockbuster Le Mans ’66 is ‘histoire à la Hollywood’, of course, yet it successfully encapsulates one of motorsport’s most poignant rivalries. You haven’t seen it? In a nutshell: early ’60s, Ford wants to end the American gentlemen’s agreement between the Big Three in Detroit not to compete in murderous motorsport, because, well, it wants to sell on Monday. Ford wants to buy racing expertise, Enzo Ferrari wants to sell, so the horsetrading begins. With a deal on the table ready for signing in May 1963, Enzo Ferrari suddenly pulls out. An outraged Henry Ford II swears he will beat Ferrari on the track. Enter the GT40.
And so, out of revenge, it was born – as the GT; ‘40’ was added to indicate the height in inches (101.6cm). To underpin its race programme, Ford had turned to British specialists. Lotus was quickly dismissed, with the stubborn Colin Chapman unlikely to bend to Ford’s orders. But Eric Broadley at Lola was different. And with the Lola Mk6, he already had an interesting project on the go.
It took some time – early racing with the GT40 was not exactly a success – and it took a lot of money, but in 1966 Ford got there and finally beat Ferrari at Le Mans with a glorious 1-2-3 finish for the GT40 MkII, powered by the monstrous 7.0-litre ‘427’ V8. After the 1967 victory of Foyt and Gurney in the GT40 MkIV, Le Mans banned these big engines, stating that prototypes should have engines of 3.0-litre capacity, or 5.0 litres in the case of sports cars with a minimal production of 50. Ferrari bid ‘Addio’, but Ford wheeled out the old GT40 MkI with the 4.9-litre ‘289’ V8. In iconic Gulf colours, the John Wyer-entered chassis 1075 added two more victories at Le Mans to Ford’s tally, bringing the GT40’s total to four.
Such success obviously propelled the GT40 to iconic status, but there was much more to it than that. Its low yet broad-shouldered figure still makes your jaw drop when it appears before you; there is no need to lift the engine cover to know that something powerful lurks beneath, ready to erupt. We are at Ford’s Proving Ground in Lommel, Belgium. You and I would call it Disneyland for car nuts, only you and I can’t get in. On a normal day, at least. When you show up with three GT40s, it is most definitely a normal day. The 2.5-mile banked oval where Ford normally endurance-tests Mondeos, Kugas and Transit vans is opened up specifically for these cars – and what a sight. More than that, what a sound: thunder comes rolling over Lommel as the three big V8s tear across the asphalt in fighter-jet formation, and it sends shivers down the spine.
Let us, like Ford, start with the raw material, the racer. As track GT40s go, this one has not led a typical life. Chassis
‘Its low yet broadshouldered figure still makes your jaw drop when it appears before you’
1027 made its debut at the Brussels Motor Show in 1966, in Belgian racing yellow. After that, Ford sold it to the movie company MGM – by which time it was white with a blue stripe – and it was used to film action scenes in John Frankenheimer’s epic movie Grand Prix. Surreally, the only American-born F1 champion Phil Hill drove it among the single-seaters, loaded with cameras.
When MGM sold it, 1027 went to the USA, where Jim Toensig swapped the engine for a four-cam Ford Indy engine and removed the rear window because it kept melting from the heat of the exhausts. The next owner raced it with a 302 V8 and crashed it at Road America. This led to its first big restoration. In 2002, this GT40 came to the UK, where Sir Anthony Bamford had it refurbished and fitted with a correct engine at Gelscoe. It has since been widely campaigned, including a record-breaking lap at Goodwood’s Revival Meeting in 2015, driven by Sam Hancock.
My turn now, and I instantly fall in love. It’s brilliant, it’s loud and it communicates in the most natural way. I get the oversteer antics that make it look so dramatic in action, but in reality this car lets you know ages in advance what is going to happen, giving the pilot ample time to catch a slide. It doesn’t get more heroic than enjoying such action while all the time that glorious V8 is bellowing behind you.
However, there is no room for daintiness. You need to show the GT40 who’s boss and where we are going. Few race cars will try to intimidate you more than a GT40. Every horse in that engine is making its presence felt, both in sound and feel. Detroit iron is raw and unsophisticated; it trembles through the structure and you tremble to match. With peak horsepower and peak torque just 1000rpm apart, you need to keep it close to 6000rpm for maximum performance. Depending on engine specification, you get between 380 and 425bhp to play with and just over 900kg to move, so that’s plenty. If you can get it off the line without stalling – the clutch is heavy and unforgiving – there’s sufficient oomph, even at lower revs, to make your eyes grow wider while certain parts of your lower body retract.
The GT40 rewards courage and effort. You never have to fight it – it is, in fact, beautifully balanced – but there is always a degree of physicality involved to make it turn and brake. Even so, it is precise and forgiving: basically one of the most impressive cars you could ever drive.
But that’s on the track… so, what went wrong in the transition to road car? Ford had invested heavily in the racing programme and, with the first years failing to bring
‘It doesn’t get more heroic than enjoying oversteer antics with that glorious V8 bellowing behind you’
‘The similarities with the race car are clear: the sound, the shaking, the physical stress on your upper arms’
results, the whole Ferrari-payback thing was beginning to cost Dearborn dearly. So, the idea grew to offer prosperous clients the opportunity to buy a GT40 they could take out on the road. For that, Ford explored two paths, illustrated by the two other cars we have here.
Make no mistake, this is a historically significant moment: the first time the two prototypes used by Ford to develop the roadgoing GT40 have ever met. On the one hand you have the MkI GT40, which is nothing more than a race car you could take out on the road, a project that ticked all the boxes legally and none of them practically. In sumptuous – rather than stark – contrast, the MkIII GT40 was a far more sophisticated approach. This car was developed with everyday usability in mind and was, in short, the easy GT40. It’s just that the press and, consequently, the public didn’t like it one bit.
Both the roadgoing MkI and the MkIII were built under the Ford Advanced Vehicles banner at John Wyer Automotive Engineering in Slough, England. The MkI was first. This car – silver with blue stripes, chassis 1013 – was the development prototype and the press demonstrator car, used to advertise the GT40 road programme in 1965.
Compared with the later (blue) MkIII, it kept the original driving position of the race car: right-hand drive with the gearlever poking up from the sill. So climbing on board takes a bit of effort; twisting your leg between the steering wheel and the gearknob demands flexibility, and only then can you lower your backside into the driving seat. Once you close the cut-out door, the sky vanishes from above you and it is just you and the car, ready for the road. There are a couple of door pockets, but that is really it for luggage space. You could add a radio and even air-con if you wanted. The driving position is bathtub-like, just like in the race car. It’s the same dog-leg five-speed ZF ’box as well, with reverse protected by a lock to avoid costly mishaps. Tricky when making a three-point turn, of course.
Chassis 1013 was tested intensely. In December 1965 it began a voyage through Europe, sprinting between Slough and Adenau, Spa, Le Mans and Rouen. It was a 1400-mile odyssey in what John Horsman’s meticulous testing journal describes as ‘mostly wet, sometimes icy’ conditions. The top speed was not established, but the test report states that 6000rpm in fifth gear was exceeded once, with the car still accelerating. That wouldn’t have been far off the 200mph top speed of the race car.
Officially, the 289 V8 was detuned from 380bhp to 335bhp at 6250rpm, but this one put out ‘just’ 289bhp at 5500rpm on the dyno. In reality, it doesn’t feel like ‘just’ 289bhp. When you start it, the V8 sounds every bit as intimidating. It shakes just as brutally and the kick you get in your back feels every bit as violent. The similarities with the race car are instantly clear: the sound, the shaking, the physical stress on your upper arms. If you wanted to know in 1966 what if felt like to drive a race car, you could just order this. And those that did certainly made the best of it. No.1013 is said to have done over 100,000 miles, making it surely the world’s most used GT40, and one previous British owner used it so much on the road in all weathers that the chassis
needed a special rust treatment. It was repainted and mechanically overhauled in 1997.
To be able to drive this car on the road is a real privilege. There was nothing else like it in its day, but for daily use, well, it’s all a bit much. The antidote to that, therefore, should be the MkIII. The perfect recipe of race-car pedigree and ‘tuned-for-the-road’ practicality. Development started in parallel with MkI production. The idea for a bigger ‘GT44’ might have been shelved, and the MkIII gained only a paltry one centimetre in height, but it was 11cm longer. Since the original GT40 headlight set-up didn’t comply with US regulations, a twin-headlight configuration was drawn up, with higher-placed outer lamps. It had greater road clearance, and smaller fuel tanks in the sills allowed for more insulation material. Getting on board was easier, as the gearstick was moved to a conventional position in the centre of the car. The cabin was made just that little bit bigger. And you had a – minimalist – luggage compartment behind the engine, in the form of a metal case.
Most importantly, however, the engine was swapped for the more docile 289 V8 that was used in the Mustang 350. Still, it gave 306bhp and would propel the GT40 MkIII to a searing 175mph. Ford was confident that it could sell more than 20 MkIIIs, so it set an astonishing sticker price of $18,500. That made the MkIII $2000 pricier than a GT40 race car, and that was only the start of its problems…
The car you see here is development prototype XP130/1, which later received chassis number 1101. It was developed in England by John Wyer at the same time as the MkI but only took its public bow a full year later, at the 1967 New York motor show. It was this very car that was displayed by Ford, and it was this very car that was sent out for the first press tests. Disaster ensued. The finish was abominable and criticism was savage. Simply not worth the money,
concluded Car & Driver, summarising popular opinion. The scathing verdicts (and the price) suffocated the MkIII at birth, only seven were manufactured, and even that number outpaced demand. What’s especially ironic is that the MkIII failed to sell even when 30 of its racing siblings were road-registered!
This car was at one point converted to MkI spec, but subsequent restoration took it back to correct form. And, as I drive it, I don’t understand why it didn’t appeal. Yes, it is different and, unsurprisingly, if you have just driven the MkI, it feels softer. But that’s no bad thing. Similarly, you can hear that it’s a different engine, right from start-up, and that it feels a bit lazier than the MkI’s, but this remains an extremely potent V8 nonetheless. The MkIII isn’t a great deal heavier and, once the V8 gets into its stride around 4000rpm, it still gives you goosebumps.
But then there is the other side of the coin: it’s substantially easier to shift gears in the MkIII’s dog-leg fivespeed ZF ’box. The clutch is lighter, and driving it is far less deafening an experience than in the other two. If I was planning to drive any of these three away from the track, I wouldn’t pause for a second before planting myself in the MkIII. It is a massively misunderstood car, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great one. Ford genuinely managed to turn the animalistic GT40 into something of a Grand
Tourer, while retaining much of the feeling of the original car. That was one hell of an accomplishment.
Ford needed to sell 50 cars in one year for the GT40 to be able to qualify for sports car regulations instead of falling into the prototype category. It managed, but largely due to the MkI road car and not the MkIII as Ford had intended. The MkI GT40 is epic, no doubt, but it is not a great road car because it is just too hardcore. The MkIII actually fits that bill much better, so maybe a bit of a reappraisal for the GT40 MkIII is overdue. Especially since its contemporary failure means that it is so much rarer today.
The irony is that, while the success of the original GT40 didn’t help Ford to sell its adapted road cars in period, it has certainly been instrumental in the appeal and success of its later-generation GTs, which have had eager queues of customers clamouring for them. For Ford, therefore, the marketing story needs to be adapted: win in 1966 and sell in 2005 and 2015. Better late than never. End
THANKS TO Ford Belgium, Lommel Proving Ground, Scuderia Blu, gpsracing.be and rmd.be for the MkIs, and Kurt Engelhorn, Johannes Jäger (Klassikerschmiede) and Florian Seidl (Carficionado Collection Management) for the MkIII.
‘A reappraisal for the GT40 MkIII is overdue. Especially since its failure makes it so much rarer’