1964 Ford GT40 Coupe

Ford unveiled their new GT race car at the New York Auto Show in 1964. Just two weeks later, joined by the second car, GT/102, the team arrived for the April Le Mans practice weekend. Wind tunnel testing had further refined the GT40's shape, but on the first outings drivers Jo Schlesser and Roy Salvadori encountered sever rear lifting at high speed that made the cars too dangerous to drive. Both drivers pushed their mounts past 190 mph, but only once. On the second day Schlesser crashed on Mulsanne and Salvadori slid into the bank at the end of the straight. Both drivers were unscathed, but the cars were ruined.

This car is a complete and precise reconstruction of the first ever GT40 prototype, then called simply the GT, that was originally built by British specialists Abbey Panels and Harold Radford. The car is powered by an exact reconstruction of the 255 cubic-inch Indianapolis engine. The engine uses an original block and cylinder heads. It also has the original Weber carburetors.

After development work by Ford at Dearborn the GT (GT/101) was shown to the press at the 1964 New York Auto Show before it ran in the 1964 Le Mans trials driven by Jo Schlesser. During the trials, that first prototype was crashed - as was the second prototype (GT/102) driven by Roy Salvadori. After Le Mans, GT/101 was scrapped, and the GT design was modified and became the GT40 MK1. This car was built from the original drawings and photos of GT/101. Over a two-year period, the engine was built from scratch with the assistance of Ford heritage and Ford's race engineer Mose Nowland, who had worked on the original GT40 engines.