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8/16/2006
Location
Afton, TN
US
Rolling out
https://www.yahoo.com/news/first-2017-ford-gts-en-220444543.html
You can't resale them,Ford buys back,supposedly you can't park it either ,they are meant to be driven /raced.
But,they are doubling production.
There is a company in south Africa,superformance I think,that is making "continuance" cars of the original late 60s GT40s from original plans and tooling methods. They are made out of the same aluminum right down to the location of spot welds.
The only difference is the large oil tank for the dry sump engine is removed for air conditioning components.
Either car would be cool to have.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/first-2017-ford-gts-en-220444543.html
You can't resale them,Ford buys back,supposedly you can't park it either ,they are meant to be driven /raced.
But,they are doubling production.
There is a company in south Africa,superformance I think,that is making "continuance" cars of the original late 60s GT40s from original plans and tooling methods. They are made out of the same aluminum right down to the location of spot welds.
The only difference is the large oil tank for the dry sump engine is removed for air conditioning components.
Either car would be cool to have.
I didn't think they could call them GT40's anymore, due to trademark issues? Maybe they bought out the current trademark owner?
I'd kill to get one, but I can't afford it nor would Ford sell me one. I have a history of tearing shit up.
Nonetheless, that car is a work if art!
$40 million is just stupid. The GT40 might be one of the most iconic cars in American Racing history, but that dont mean the name is worth that much. Can't blame Ford for not buying that.
The Shop
Cat's Exotics ( http://www.catsexotics.com ) had a couple of the mid 2000s GTs for sale for incredibly high prices, and sold at least one of them already. They're pretty sought after.
I still call them GT40s
Got to see one of the 67 lemans cars with the 427 ci at the mustang anniversary in 94 at Charlotte. The ruled out the big engine for 68 and went back to 4.5 liters or such,like 260 ci as I recall. Ford was done by then but the cars still won in 68 and 69 with the small block which was used in indy also .
That one is a track car. He's got a lot of other goodies in his garage too. I always like visiting to see what he''s working on:
http://s1179.photobucket.com/user/vmdirt/library/garcia?sort=3&page=1
Anyway, the guy has built six or seven GT-40s completely FROM SCRATCH. They aren't considered replicas either. They have all been added to the GT-40 registry.
The owner of the original GT-40 J car has approached him on several occasions to restore it, but after building all those from scratch he doesn't seem to have any interest.
I have a buddy who grew up going to vintage mustang races with his family and this guy used to do fab work for them and even went on a few race trips with them. Buddy said Ken was a true genius in every sense of the word.
Ken Thompson.. For any of you guys that are into fab work, GT-40s, or cars period, look him up.
The stuff Ford was building thru the 60s just gets me high. Love digging for stuff from then.
You know Ferrari had the last race cancelled in 65 or 66 so he could win the world championship. It was in Italy so he had the pull. The next year Ford won it.
The GT40s came to being because Ferrari backed out of selling to Ford and pissed him off.
If you've ever been up to Detroit, there is a '67 GT40 (mk IV) in the Henry Ford museum, along with Bill Elliott's '87 Thunderbird that held the Nascar closed course speed record, the Goldenrod land speed racer with 4 426 Hemis in it, a SOHC powered gasser, etc.
There are also a couple of the 2005 GT's in Jack Roush's museum, too. One of them is a prototype, still has all of the test instrumentation in it.
I damn near exploded with excitement when I walked in there.
Definitely not a barrier to anyone who can afford a $300K plus car.......
I wrote a policy on a fairly rare Mopar muscle car in about 2004. Agreed value was $140K, annual premium was less than $300.
The FE engine,for Ford edsel I recall started as the 352 ,most common is the 390. Then 406 and 427 ,428.
The 427 had several head designs, low,medium and high riser. The high riser for full on drag came in the 64 thunderbolt. Also made a tunnel port with huge round ports that the pushrods passed thru in tubes,it was NASCAR engine.
Then the sohc with a 7 foot cam chain that made cam timing a nightmare. They also cast a all aluminum FE 495 for can am racing.
The boss 429 is a late 60s engine made for NASCAR by shoving 500 in mustangs.
I found a 427 sideoiler,named for the bulge running down the block for a oil galley. It still has the sodium filled valves and cant be fired till those come out,the heads pop off from deteriorating. Would like to build a thunderbolt one day.
Pit Row
Hillbilly, yep, FE = Ford-Edsel. The 352 and 390 weren't much to write home about but the 427 & 428's were great engines. The 385 series big blocks have much more available in terms of aftermarket support but just aren't as cool as the FE's. Ford also had the Cleveland headed smallblocks- the boss 351 may have been the best smallblock ever, it just showed up late, and also installed in a heavier car.
The biggest bummer about Fords is the parts interchangeability back in those days isn't the greatest. Chevy, B-O-P, or Mopar are much easier to swap engines/transmissions around.
When Ford came out with that new GT, AJ ordered one here in town (he lives near me) and when it arrived the dealer offered to have it enclosed-trailered to his race-headquarters about 20 miles away, he said he wanted to drive it himself. So they shoe-horned his fatass into that brand new super car, and he headed out. Less than a half hour after that he got pulled over by Texas DPS for doing around 160'ish on the Farm-to-Market road to his ranch. This was at the dealership when he took delivery.
He still has it at his main shop on display.
My wife's uncle is a bigtime car collector and he bought one and as I understand it the car hasnt been started but a few times since it was delivered, and I dont think it has been driven but only pushed and trailered. He's keeping it close to NOS as possible, just as it arrived from Ford.
By Jeremy Clarkson of The Sunday Times
Thirty-five years ago I promised myself that one day I’d own a Ford GT40, the blue-collar supercar that took an axle grinder to Ferrari’s aristocratic halo at Le Mans. But 25 years ago my dreams were dashed as I grew too tall to fit inside.
Happily, in 2002 Ford announced that it was to build a modern-day version of the old racer. It would, they said, cost less than £100,000 and do more than 200mph. They also said it would be much bigger than the original so pylon-people like me would be able to drive it.
And so, two years ago, having tested a prototype in America, I placed an order for one of the 28 that were coming to Britain.
As the months groaned by there were rumours of big price increases, insatiable thirst and catastrophic suspension failure. But there were also rumours of the supercharged V8 pumping out 550bhp and a mountain of torque so massive it was breaking the testing equipment. So I didn’t mind.
I didn’t even mind when it arrived at my house one month ago inside a truck which had “On Time” written down the side. As we know from America’s arrival into the second world war, their concept of “on time” differs slightly from ours.
And anyway, it looked so gorgeous, a mass of bulging muscle struggling to contain that massive 5.4 litre supercharged heart. It doesn’t look like a GT40 but it looks like a GT40 looks in your head. And it’s huge. Longer than a Volvo XC90 and as wide as a Hummer.
Which is why, on its first run, to London, it was like a blue and white Pied Piper trailing a stream of ratty hatches in its wake. Everyone was taking pictures, waving, giving me the thumb’s up. Never, not once in 15 years of road testing cars, had anything drawn such a massive crowd. And never had the crowd been so overtly supportive.
Of course you can’t run a car like this without a few problems rearing their head from time to time. It’s too wide for the width restrictions on Hammersmith bridge — backing up earned me a slot on the traffic news that morning. The turning circle means every mini roundabout becomes a three-point turn, and at oblique junctions, as is the case in a Ferrari Enzo, you absolutely cannot see if anything’s coming.
But set against this is a surprisingly quiet and civilised ride. It’s like a power station. Silent, as it gets on with the job of brightening up your life.
Mind you, you are constantly aware of the Herculean power that nestles just over your right shoulder. Partly because you can see the supercharger belt whirring away in the rear-view mirror and partly because it makes a deep, dog-baiting rumble when you do put your foot down.
Ford asked that I keep the revs below 4000 for the first thousand miles. But since 100mph equates to 1900rpm it’s not really a hardship. And at this speed you’re doing 15mpg, which isn’t bad at all. But three days later everything started to go very, very wrong.
Leaving the Top Gear studio, the immobiliser refused to un-immobilise itself. So the car was pushed into the hangar and I went home instead in a rented Toyota Corolla.
Ford sent a tow truck, changed the immobiliser and delivered the car to my house the following day. “Is it fixed?” I asked. “Yes,” they said.
It wasn’t. At three in the morning the alarm blew. And then again at four. This meant my wife started to refer to it as “that f****** car”, which took away a bit of the sheen, if I’m honest.
The next day, on the way back to the garage, I received a call on the hands-free phone from the tracker company. “Your car’s been stolen, sir,” said the man. “I’m sure it hasn’t,” I said, “because I’m in it.”
Fearing that I might be the burglar, the man asked if I could give him my password. Tricky one that, since I have a different password for everything on the internet and can never remember any of them. And that’s a big problem, because the man at the end of the phone has the power to remotely shut down the engine.
I threatened him, lightly, with some physical harm, but this didn’t work so I had to guess. “Aardvark,” I ventured. “Abacus, Aesop, additional...”
Eventually he took pity and I was able to deliver the car back to Ford with some stern warnings about the alarm, the immobiliser and the tracker system, all of which seemed to be malfunctioning. As a courtesy car they gave me a Ford Focus, with a diesel engine. Nice.
Two days later the GT was back. “Is it fixed?” I asked, again. “Yes,” they said
Five minutes out of the Ford garage I received a text to say my car had been stolen. And then, in the next half hour, three more. So, counting the two I’d received before I was even out of bed, that meant my car had been stolen five times before 9am.
This time I rang Ford and explained that I would personally come over there and insert the whole car up the chairman’s backside if it wasn’t fixed. And while I was on the phone a yellow warning light came on the dash.
“There’s a yellow warning light on the dash,” I bellowed, like Michael Winner, only angrier. “Oh, that’ll be something to do with the engine management system,” said the man with the bleeding ears. “You’ll need to get it looked at . . .”
When Ford gave me the car back after its third hospital trip in as many weeks, I didn’t ask if the security system was fixed. Because the notion of it still being broken was simply inconceivable.
So imagine my surprise when, one hour later, while at my daughter’s school play, I heard a familiar siren. I couldn’t believe it. The alarm had gone off again.
In a fury this time, I called Ford and explained, loudly, that Roush, the company charged with servicing and maintaining the 28 GTs in Britain, was plainly incompetent. And that there was simply no point asking it to fix the alarm again because it’d had three goes already.
I then did something the man at Ford wasn’t expecting. I asked for my money back.
And that, the next day, is what happened.
They put £126,000 in my account and sent a man to pick up the car. “Is it the alarm system?” he said. “They all do that.”
So there we are. A 35-year dream. A two-year wait. Ten years of d4mn hard work. And what do I get? The most miserable month’s motoring it is possible to imagine.
Strangely, however, as the GT rumbled down my drive for the last time, I felt like Julie Walters watching Michael Caine getting on the plane at the end of Educating Rita. I actually cried.
There’s a very good reason for this. I genuinely believe that some machines have a soul and I can’t bear to think of my Ford sitting in a warehouse now, unloved and unwanted. It is fine. It is perfect. It knows it’s a great, great car that was ruined by a useless ape who fitted a crummy aftermarket alarm system.
Ford has said I can buy the car back any time. It has even lent me an Aston Martin DB9 while I make up my mind. I don’t know though. I just don’t know.
Normally I finish these columns with an opinion of mine. But this time it’s the other way round. I’d love to hear yours.
One thing: I know I could sell the car privately and make a £50,000 profit. But I have never profited from my position as a motoring journalist. And I never will.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Ford GT
Engine: 5409cc V8 supercharged
Power: 550bhp @ 6500rpm
Torque: 500lb ft @ 3750rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 14.6mpg (combined cycle)
CO2: N/A
Acceleration 0-60mph: 3.8sec
Top speed: 212mph
Price: £126,000
Verdict: So good you can have mine
Rating: Five stars
Spydee- Clarkston's car had an aftermarket alarm on it hooked to the vehicle communications bus, none of the cars in the US had those problems.
http://eliteautosllc.com/inventory/
He had a beautiful little '64 Falcon with a big block and a 4 speed..sadly he had a heart attack and passed away in that car driving home one day.
His weasel son could give a fuck about cars and sold away his collection....I was never a ford guy but he had some pretty impressive stuff.
Have 2 Clevelands and extra 4v heads for a boss 302 build and a 2 4barrel Roush boss intake I found at that mustang anniversary in 94 at Charlotte. Some old Windsors that are internal balance
Have a 63 fairlane sport coupe with a 260 . 65 comet. 68 thunderbird.
I built the t bird 460 with roller cam and rockers , with the cobra jet intake on stock 68 heads,the 10.5 to one back then,but i blended the cj intake massive runners into those heads just to try it for torque and rev. I put it in my old 78. F100 stepside farm truck first just to raise hell in . Traction lock and a c6 I kitted out.
Find someone at a redlight in a vette or whatever,let them take off then blow by spinning the wheels at 60. It was the scarriest vehicle i ever built. It would twist so bad youd put 90 degrees of wheel in just to got straight,then snatch it back on the 1 2 shift.
It sheared the tail case off the tranny one day dumping oil over the rears and I bout crashed, retired it after that.
Good times.
My dream truck is a late 60s f250 "highboy"
Found a guy on craigslist years ago trying to get rid of his. Needed an engine, transmission, and bed. Otherwise pretty good condition. He was willing to take like $100.
I ended up having to pass on it because I couldn't find any engines. Nobody, nowhere had an effing 360, 390, 427, 460. Nothing. No manual transmissions either. Didn't wanna tow it all the way up from south ga to just have it sit.
To this day I can't believe I passed on it. Shouldn't be so damn hard to find a usable block.
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