Ford's centenary supercar couldn't be called GT40 because someone else owned the name
Ford built the GT to celebrate its 100th birthday in 2003, and the left headlight cluster was even shaped to read 100. It was meant to revive the GT40, winner at Le Mans four years running, but a small Ohio firm owned that trademark and wanted US$40 million. Ford refused, so the car became simply the GT.
It started as a concept at the 2002 Detroit show, penned by Camilo Pardo of Ford's Living Legends studio under J Mays, with Carroll Shelby helping to test prototypes. Internally the project was known as Petunia. It looked like the 1960s racer but shared nothing structural, and it stood 4 inches taller than the original's 40, so GT44 was floated as a name. Six weeks after the unveiling Ford committed to a limited run.
Underneath sat a supercharged 5.4-litre all-aluminium V8 making 550 horsepower, a superplastic-formed frame, aluminium body panels and a fuel tank installed like a ship in a bottle. Car and Driver clocked 0 to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds. Assembly was spread across several sites in Ohio and Michigan. The first private buyer, former Microsoft executive Jon Shirley, won the right at a Pebble Beach charity auction with a bid over US$557,000, and other early cars fetched up to US$100,000 above the US$139,995 list price.
Ford planned 4,500 but stopped at 4,038 in September 2006. A heavily modified example later reached 310.8 mph on the Space Florida runway, a record for a street-legal car.
A second generation appeared in 2015 after a secretive project involving about a dozen people. Its designers started with aerodynamics, chasing a teardrop shape, and chose a twin-turbo EcoBoost V6 because it was compact enough to fit that form. Exactly 50 years after the GT40's 1966 triumph, the new car won its class at Le Mans in 2016.
Source: Ford GT
