Ford GT40

History

When Enzo Ferrari walked away from Ford's 1963 acquisition bid, Henry Ford II commissioned revenge by racetrack. The GT40 programme began with Lola's Eric Broadley and Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough, matured through Carroll Shelby's American operation and Holman & Moody, and after painful 1964–65 failures produced total victory: the 7-litre Mk II's staged 1-2-3 at Le Mans 1966, the all-American Mk IV win of 1967 (Foyt/Gurney, still the only all-American car-team-drivers victory), and back-to-back wins for the Gulf-liveried 4.9-litre Mk Is of John Wyer in 1968–69 — chassis P/1075 winning twice, Jacky Ickx's 1969 margin a few hundred metres after 24 hours.

Production totalled roughly 105 cars across Mk I–IV plus road-going Mk IIIs, and privateer GT40s stayed competitive into the early 1970s. The silhouette became so canonical that a continuation industry grew around it — from Safir's sanctioned GT40P run to Superformance's toolroom-grade cars — making 'GT40' simultaneously an eight-figure original and an accessible historic-racing platform.

Original chassis are catalogued car-by-car in the marque registries; the 1966–69 winners live in museums and top collections, while 'ordinary' originals and quality continuations populate historic endurance grids from Le Mans Classic to Spa Six Hours.

Palmarès

Le Mans overall winner 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969; the 1966 1-2-3 formation finish; World/International Championship for Makes titles 1966 and 1968; Daytona 24 and Sebring 12 wins; and Gulf-Wyer's 1968–69 campaigns that beat newer prototypes with a supposedly obsolete design — plus half a century of historic-racing victories since.