Ford GT
Drawing On One Of The Most Charismatic Legacies In Automotive History, The
Ford GT Has A Lot Riding On It. But Is It A Worthy Rebirth Or Merely A Cynical Rehash? Andy Enright Reports
Mention 1966 to most people and theyll note that some of the crowd were indeed on the pitch but to anybody with motorsports history flowing through their veins, 1966 was all about Ford giving
Ferrari a bloody nose at Le Mans. With three GT40 sports cars filling the podium positions, the Blue Oval cocked an impish snook at the bluebloods from Maranello. Now nearly forty years later, Ford is at it again in the familiar shape of the GT, a car that takes the styling cues of the old GT40 and marries them to resolutely high tech engineering. The best of both worlds? It comes closer than you might imagine.
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As before,
Ford is tilting at
Ferrari but in this instance, the GTs target is the 360. With 400bhp to call upon and 1,447kg to haul along, the Ferrari offers electrifying performance but the GT looks to knock the Italian into next week with 500bhp of supercharged V8 powering 1521kg of extruded aluminium. Do the sums and the result is instantly apparent. The Ferrari is only ever going to get a view of the brutal Fords receding tail pipes.
Mission accomplished there then. In case you were wondering why its a Ford GT and not a GT40, the answer is simple. Rather like the Queen selling off the Crown Jewels because she wasnt wearing them anymore, Ford sold the rights to the GT40 name to Safir Engineering, a British company that produced beautifully finished mega-money replicas of the GT40. When Safir ran into financial problems in 1999, the name was transferred to their US-based parts operation and Ford managed to negotiate a one-off deal to use the name on their 2002 Detroit Show car.
This received such a reception that Ford decided they had to buy the name back from Safir GT40 Spares but the asking price of $40 million was deemed excessive. So the GT it is. Ford know that most are still going to refer to the car as the GT40 despite it measuring 43 inches high and not the originals 40 inch height (hence the name).
"The GT is a car so beautiful you wont be able to lever your gaze from it"
As with many of the best cars of its ilk, the Ford GT is the work of a number of seriously committed car nuts who have created the car using the best expertise from the furthest reaches of the companys automotive empire. Despite being billed as a car as American as moms apple pie, the GT in fact utilises a manual gearbox from Ricardo (UK), bodywork by Mayflower (us again), a steering rack from an
Aston Martin Vanquish and
Lotus had a hand in the chassis development. The wheels are made by BBS and the brakes are from Brembo. The engine, however, is red, white and blue stars and bars stuff, a 5.
4-litre behemoth lifted from the Lightning pickup truck. At his point, it may have come to your attention that rather than sounding like a thoroughbred money-no-object flagship, the GT is something of a parts bin special and its difficult to deny. Whats equally true is that the sum of these disparate parts is quite wonderful. Remember the vaguely woeful Th!nk electric car that Ford briefly hoped would be the next best thing? It wasnt completely useless, as lessons learned from developing the extruded aluminium spaceframe chassis have been used in the GTs fabrication.
Volvo pitched in with some assistance on the welding process required to fix the chassis together and both Aston Martin and
Jaguar provided much-needed competitor information. This make do and mend feeling is identical to the original model, a car which used a blue collar approach to take the aristocrats from Italy out back and give them a good kicking. The GT is a car so beautiful you wont be able to lever your gaze from it. It makes the Ferrari 360 and even the
Lamborghini Gallardo look a little clumsy, the sweeping curves, retro detailing and ridiculously muscular haunches giving the car the most beautiful proportions.
The bonnet is a little sharper than the original car and yet it works so well, the increased height giving the car less of a stepped upon look. Heresy, maybe, but I prefer the styling of the GT to the original. The interior has been designed to offer a charismatic, no-nonsense race replica feel but the controls are all very benignly weighted. The gearchange action is just buttery smooth and the clutch and brakes dont require thighs like a rugby prop to operate.
With a lot of exposed aluminium on display, its a look that many lesser vehicles try to ape. This is the real deal, however, and has been designed with at least half an eye on practicality. Theres a fair amount of headroom (the original was notorious in this regard) and with plenty of
seat travel and a tiltable steering column, its not difficult to get comfortable even if you are 64" like me. Aside from the Ferrari 360, the Lamborghini Gallardo and the
Porsche 911 Turbo, the Ford GT must also contend with Chryslers 500bhp Viper SRT/10. With the benefit of seeing Chryslers hand first, Ford aim for a 0-60 time that undercuts the snake by a tenth of a second at 3.9 seconds to 60mph and a top speed of 190mph.
If you need to ask about emissions, fuel economy and insurance groups, chances are youre not the GTs target customer. Value for money looks to be relatively good, Ford having pitched the GT with a £120,000 price tag. The fact that the GT is so visually arresting makes objectivity a real problem. Its a car that could wind up with some real glaring faults but youd still work out ways of affording one even if these methods were of questionable morality.
The GT comes across as a car you could aspire to, a car you could use and a car which would look good with your name on the registration document. Now, that small matter of £120,000
FACTS AT A GLANCE
CAR: Ford GT
PRICE: £120,000 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 20
CO2 EMISSIONS: tba
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 3.9s / Max Speed 190mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: tba
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: tba
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: 4613/1950/1106mm
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