The Ford GT Is Three of the Greatest Cars of All Time
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An all-out, cost-is-no-object race car, the original Ford GT40 seared a permanent place in the world’s collective gearhead psyche with an epic one-two-three finish at Le Mans in 1966. The car’s legend was further burnished by its knockout looks and theatrical backstory (thwarted in his attempt to buy Ferrari, hard-charging scion Henry Ford II pursues racing revenge with some talented friends). Perhaps more incredible is that Ford subsequently built cars to fill the GT40’s shoes not just once but twice.
This story originally appeared in Volume 22 of Road & Track detailing the greatest cars we've ever driven.
In the early Aughts, when Ford set out to join the rarefied ranks of makers of high-dollar limited-edition retro-baubles, a reborn GT was an obvious choice. Launched for a two-year run in 2005—nominally in celebration of Ford’s centenary in 2003, when the first prototypes hit the road—this new GT looked an awful lot like the original, though it was in fact larger and easier to live with. Never intended to be a race car, the new GT paid off as a stellar grand tourer. This was thanks in large part to the new technologies deployed in its mostly aluminum construction, as well as careful development work by, among others, the tuner Saleen, which had recently gained experience building the S7 supercar.
After an initial run-up in values well above the GT’s initial MSRP of $143,345 subsided, the market had a rethink, today judging any example from the 4038 produced worth multiples of its original purchase price. Sporting a mid-mounted 550-hp supercharged V-8 paired with a six-speed manual transmission, the brutally fast yet well-mannered GT folded past and present into the ultimate Ford-badged road car.
A decade later, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first GT40 Le Mans victory, Ford brought back the GT with an entirely different mission. While the GT of 2017–22, built by Canada’s Multimatic, outwardly bore less resemblance to its venerable granddad, one of its intended roles would be a return to endurance racing.
The thumping V-8 was gone; in its place, a 647-hp twin-turbocharged V-6 (bumped up to 660 hp for 2020) capable of pushing the futuristic Ford to a 216-mph top speed. A state-of-the-art carbon-fiber monocoque and a hugely aerodynamic body, along with a notable lack of luggage capacity and elbowroom, indicated that this latest GT was not just a collector car but a homologation special and serious racer. It didn’t look much like the original, but in 2016, a half century after the GT40 became the first American car to win Le Mans outright, a GT campaigned by Ford Chip Ganassi Racing won its LM GTE Pro class at the famous 24-hour race.
With just 1350 examples built, the most recent GT, like the earlier GT and the GT40, will inevitably be valued far higher than its original base price, which was $500,000 for the 2022 model. Lightning might strike only once, but Ford made one legendary thunderclap, then two echoes that resounded that greatness just as loudly.
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