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Unless you’ve been hiding in a fallout shelter on the coast outside Murmansk for the past six months, it’s old news that Ford is bringing back the GT, a car that traces its lineage to a failed deal between Enzo Ferrari and Henry Ford II back in the mid-1960s. Since the new GT took the car world by surprise upon its debut at the Detroit auto show earlier this year, rumors have been circling that Dearborn would send the new supercar to Le Mans. With the Blue Oval having officially announced its return to the world’s most famous endurance race, it’s worth taking a look back at the mythic late-1960s spree of victories that cut off Ferrari’s Le Mans dominance at the knees and cemented the GT40’s place in history.
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In the early 1960s, Henry Ford II was in talks with Enzo Ferrari to purchase his motorcar concern. Il Commendatore initiated the potential lash-up back in 1963, reaching out via post to Ford’s Cologne offices. Enzo’s stipulation was that Ford would get the road-car business, while he’d retain control of the Scuderia. Ford-Ferraris would stride the highways, while Ferrari-Fords would tackle the racing circuits. At the last minute, however, Ferrari backed out.
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Understandably irked, Hank The Deuce decided that if he couldn’t buy Ferrari, he’d beat Ferrari.
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Meanwhile, Carroll Shelby, unhappy with the aerodynamic inefficiency of what was fundamentally a 1950s British roadster body, commissioned Pete Brock to design a more slippery shape for his Cobra—something that could hang with Ferrari’s brilliant 250GTO on the Circuit de la Sarthe’s three-mile Mulsanne straight.
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The Deuce approached Colin Chapman for help in his quest to get a top-flight sports-car-racing program off the ground. Chapman demanded a pile of cash and that the cars be called Lotus-Fords. Ford refused. Lola’s Eric Broadley agreed to help out, and in 1964, alongside Shelby’s Daytonas, Ford’s GT40 Mark I started the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
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While Shelby’s Ford-powered Cobra Daytona managed a GT class win at Le Mans and fourth overall under the sure hands and feet of Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant, the Ford GT40s did not fare well. All three failed to make it to the finish, although the worst GT40 still did better than a Ferrari 250LM entered by Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team. The Ford managed 58 laps to the Ferrari’s zero. Still, it was a works Ferrari, a 275P driven by Jean Guichet and Nino Vaccarella, that won overall, part of a 1-2-3 finish for the prancing horse.
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Taking another shot in 1965, Ford entered both the Mark I and the big-block-powered Mark II. None of the six cars finished the race, and Ferrari took the checkered flag again. The Deuce was displeased. Very displeased.
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Ford GT40s finish 1-2-3 at Le Mans, 1966
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In 1966, however, the work finally paid off. The 427-powered GT40 Mark II sent the Italians packing at Le Mans, and Ford teams took up the entire podium—with Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon on top. In fact, the best Ferrari—a 275GTB/C campaigned by Piers Courage and Roy Pike—finished eighth, behind a slew of Porsche Carrera 6s, and 50 laps down on the top two Fords.
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A few short months later, Ken Miles, who’d driven the second-place Mark II along with Denny Hulme, was killed testing Ford’s “J-Car.” The J featured “breadvan” styling, not unlike Chapman’s then-new Lotus Europa. After Miles’ fatal wreck at Riverside, the aerodynamics were revised and a roll cage built into the structure. The result was the GT40 Mark IV. Though it retained the J’s radical aerospace-honeycomb construction, the steel cage nearly negated the new car’s weight advantage over the old Mark II.
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Still, the thing was capable of 212 mph down the Mulsanne straight, which was a smidge terrifying to its drivers, given the limited capabilities of the era’s braking systems. Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt—a double-bill on the order of Black Flag and Hüsker Dü—pushed the largely U.S.-developed Mark IV to victory at Le Mans in 1967, four laps up on the second-place Ferrari 330 P4 of Ludovico Scarfiotti and Mike Parkes. Bruce McLaren and Mark Donohue placed fourth in their Mark IV.
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The race-winning Ford GT40 of Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt leads a Renault Alpine at Le Man 1967
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While Shelby American had presided over the GT40’s two previous Le Mans victories, a player from across the pond would punctuate the record book with the legend’s final two entries. A rules change meant that 5.0-liter cars remained kosher but the seven-liter behemoths were legislated out for 1968. So John Wyer went back to the origin of the GT40 program and updated the small-block-powered Mark I car. Resplendent in Gulf blue and orange, a GT40 driven by Pedro Rodriguez and Lucien Bianchi circumnavigated la Sarthe 331 times in 1968, beating a Swiss Porsche 907 longtail by five laps. Ferrari’s best showing was 7th.
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In 1969, Wyer’s crew brought home the glory for Ford again, putting two cars on the podium. Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver won, staving off Hans Herrmann and Gerard Larrousse’s hard-charging Porsche 908. Motorcycle genius Mike Hailwood and fellow Briton David Hobbs took third, four laps down from the top two cars. This time, Ferrari’s best result was eighth.
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It’s Official: The New Ford GT Will Race at Le Mans Next Year
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1967 Le Mans Race Cars—We Drive the Ford and the Ferrari and Explore Their History
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Ford GT Full Coverage: News, Photos, Specs, Reviews, and More
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While a variety of Ford-Cosworth engines were common in Le Mans fields throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and privateers campaigned some interesting machinery—a NASCAR Torino in 1976, a smattering of Panteras with 351 Cleveland power, and perhaps most notably, the Ford-powered Saleen S7R and Panoz Esperante—Ford’s factory efforts have been minimal. The C100 program of the early ’80s was quickly shelved after disappointing results, although Zakspeed developed the car into a serious Interserie contender after Ford gave up. In 2010 and 2011, a few teams attempted to run the revived Ford GT. The results were more akin to 1964 and 1965 than those of ’68-’69.
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Needless to say, with the full weight of Dearborn and Cologne behind the program, Ford hopes the new GT’s 2016 effort will ape the company’s previous success at la Sarthe, even if they’re not gunning for an overall victory this time around.
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