The Ford GT, born to beat Ferrari

In early 1963, Ford came close to buying Ferrari. It reportedly spent several million dollars on audits and legal negotiations, and then Enzo Ferrari cut off the talks, unwilling to give up control of his racing program. Henry Ford II, enraged, told Ford's racing division to find a way to beat Ferrari in endurance racing, where Le Mans was the race that mattered most. What came out of that grudge, the GT40, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four years in a row. Ford revived the idea as the Ford GT for 2005, and again for 2017 with a carbon-fiber supercar built about one a day, whose first buyers Ford picked itself.

Why Ford built a car just to beat Ferrari

The short version of the story is almost too tidy to be true, but it holds up. Ford wanted to buy Ferrari in 1963 and reportedly spent several million dollars getting close, before Enzo Ferrari cut off the talks late in the process over who would direct his racing, in particular whether Ferrari could still race at the Indianapolis 500, where Ford was racing Lotus cars powered by its own engines. Henry Ford II's response was to order Ford's racing division to find a way to beat Ferrari in endurance racing, and the showcase was the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race Ferrari had won six years running.

The car that resulted got its name from a measurement, not a boast. Ford started from Lola's Mk6, a mid-engined car designed by Eric Broadley that already used a Ford V8, and the finished car stood 40 inches tall at the top of the windshield, the minimum the rules allowed. GT40 was a literal description before it was a legend. Early results were dismal enough that Ford handed the program to Carroll Shelby's team after the 1964 season. Shelby's chief test driver, the English-born racer and engineer Ken Miles, played a major role in developing the car.

A new GT wins its class at Le Mans before the first road car is built

The modern Ford GT did not simply borrow the old name. In June 2016, on the 50th anniversary of that first overall win, the No. 68 Ford GT race car took the GTE Pro class at Le Mans, finishing 10.2 seconds ahead of the closest Ferrari after post-race penalties. The road car followed that December, when production began.

The engine is the part that still surprises people: not a V8, V10 or V12, but a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 that shares its block, cylinder heads and dual fuel system with the F-150's 3.5-liter V6. The compact V6 is also what made room for the flying buttresses, which channel air around the cockpit and over the active rear wing for downforce. At launch it made 647 hp and 550 lb-ft; Ford raised that to 660 hp starting with the 2020 model year. Car and Driver's testing clocked 0 to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds, and the top speed is 216 mph. Underneath is a carbon-fiber monocoque bolted to aluminum front and rear subframes.

Engine

Brakes

One a day, and you had to apply

Ford did not build the modern GT in its own plants. Multimatic assembled it at a low-volume facility in Markham, Ontario, at a rate of about one car a day, with 1,350 cars planned across the whole run. It started at $453,750 for 2017, and Ford limited production to 250 cars a year, with the first round of applications covering 500 cars across the first two years. In the end only 138 were built as 2017 models. Buyers could not simply walk into a dealership, either: the 2017 and 2018 model years were allocated through Ford Performance's application process, the 2019 cars went mainly to applicants who had missed out the first time, and Ford opened the 2020 model year to new customers.

Doors

Cockpit

A car built to settle a grudge six decades ago still spends most of its life the way any other car does: parked. Whether it is a GT40 in a private collection or a modern GT between drives, it deserves a cover matched to the exact car, not a generic one pulled off a shelf.

Keep it coveredCovers for the GT, matched to your exact car