The Ford GT40 is one of the most iconic race cars of the 20th century. Born out of spite when Enzo Ferrari rebuffed Ford’s attempt to buy his company, the mighty guns of Dearborn took aim at Italy and revenge was the mission. Henry Ford II was pretty much laser focused on the idea of blowing Ferrari off race tracks across the world with a car of Ford’s creation. That car turned out to be the GT40 but the program was not an instant success on the level some expected it to be. As you will see in this amazing film, the car showed up to race at LeMans in 1964 and while it did lead a portion of the race, all of the GT40s in the race were out early. The ’64 season was pretty much a write off for the crew and it was after ’64 that the program was given to Carroll Shelby to take over and direct.
The car you will see in the video is powered by a 255ci Indy style V8. This was a light engine that made about 375hp (probably a little less) as the video claims. The GT40s that became dominating race cars from 1966 on were all powered by mighty 427ci FE engines. The fact that Ford was able to get this program from a running prototype to dominating world championship car in the span of two years speaks to the resources that the company put behind the program. You have to remember, the cars the GT40 went into competition against were largely evolutionary products from companies that had been racing sports cars for decades and decades. Sure ’64 and ’65 were “disappointing” in the sense that the car wasn’t a dominator but it was a clean sheet build with lots of experimental ideas on board. Those ideas were refined and in 1966 we all know what happened. The domination started and by the time the Gt40 was retired, it had very much taught the fellows from Italy a lesson that they have not forgotten even today.
The video said the GT was powered by the push rod style Indy V8 engine. That would be the engine based on the small block Ford used for one year in the 1963 Lotus Fords driven by Jim Clark (2nd place finish) and Dan Gurney (7th place finish) and not the DOHC engines used in the 1964 and beyond USAC Series that became CART and later Indy. A.J. Foyt later bought the rights to that engine and it became the Foyt. When A. J. won in 1977 he was the driver, car owner, car builder and used his own in house engine. Quite an accomplishment.