From Mustang I to 2015 – Evolution of the Ford GT over 50 Years

By July 1963, the upper intake had been added, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

It’s not often anymore that automakers actually get to keep anything completely secret heading into auto show season. Aside, from the Buick Avenir concept which no one really saw coming, the closest thing to a true secret at this year’s North American International Auto Show was the all-new third-generation Ford GT. While rumors had been swirling about this car ever since someone associated with long-time Ford Racing partner MultiMatic mentioned something in passing last summer, there were none of the usual teasers from Ford, no spy photos, nothing at all in fact to indicate what the new Dearborn supercar would look like.

Unlike most of the several thousand journalists who were sitting in the stands of Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena in January waiting for the Ford press conference to start, I knew exactly which vehicles were going to appear in the next 20 minutes. However, despite knowing of the existence of the GT since last April, I had no idea what the GT would actually look like.

From back to front, the first, second and third-generation Ford GT, courtesy Ford Motor Company

I first became aware of the secret project in April 2014 as I shared a ride from Manhattan to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens with Chris Preuss. At the time Preuss was executive director of product communications for the Americas at Ford and I was the editorial lead for all things Mustang in the Ford Content Factory (yes that’s really what it’s called). It was the 50th anniversary of the launch of the original Mustang and we had just successfully completed a stunt where we assembled a new 2015 Mustang convertible on the 84th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building.

Chris and I were discussing what was coming next and he mentioned a new secret project he wanted me to work on. Over the next couple of months, I signed the requisite non-disclosure agreements to cover my work on the press materials for the new Shelby GT350 Mustang and project Phoenix.

While I was really looking forward to telling the stories of the GT350, GT350R, Raptor and GT at NAIAS, an exciting new opportunity presented itself by mid-summer and I left the Ford communications team at the beginning of August before I ever had a chance to get into the secret studio where the GT was taking shape.

The all-new third-generation Ford GT, Project Phoenix debuts at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit

Following the big reveal in Detroit, I did get to spend some time chatting with Chris Svennson, Ford’s director of design for the Americas about the GT and GT350R, but a real deep dive would have to wait until a later date. In an industry where products take years and millions of man-hours to develop, timing is rarely coincidental. When you are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a development program, everything is meticulously planned out. Thus it comes to pass that the third-generation Ford GT will hit the streets in 2016, 50 years after the first of four consecutive victories by variants of the original GT/GT40 in the 24 hours of Le Mans.

1-2-3 at 1966 Le Mans, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

While fans around the world know those 1960s cars as GT40s as a result their approximately 40-inch height, that was never the official designation. They were in fact badged simply as the Ford GT. My former colleagues at the Ford archives confirmed that the race car was known simply as the GT as shown in an ad from the period while the road car was the GT Sports Car.

Looking back, before stepping into the future

The design of the original GT can actually be traced back to the original Mustang I concept car of 1962. While the company chose to move forward with a front engine, 2+2 coupe for what would eventually become the Mustang in 1964, sketches and models from the Ford archives show that the designers never entirely let go of the ideas behind the mid-engine original.

The Mustang I makes its track debut at Watkins Glen in October 1962, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

Between 1962 and 1964, a clear evolution from Mustang I to the GT Mk 1 can be seen as a roof was added and various air intakes were moved around to improve cooling airflow. The car got longer in order to accommodate a V8 engine in place of the V4 Ford Cardinal engine used in the Mustang. By June 1963, clay models photographed in the Dearborn design studio clearly showed the basic profile of the GT that would persist through to the second-generation car of 2003-2006. By July of that year, the triangular air intakes behind the side windows were in place to provide airflow to the engine.

The most significant and lasting change actually came fairly late in the GT program with a redesigned nose. During testing of the Mk I prototype, the original concept-inspired shark nose produced dangerous amounts of front-end lift at high speeds, making the car frighteningly uncontrollable. The result of further aerodynamic development was the deeper, blunter looking nose with the triangular air outlets in the front cover that has come to be inexorably associated with the GT over the past five decades.

By the spring of 1963, designers were looking at a coupe based on the design of the Mustang I, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

Between its debut in 1964 and that first 1966 win at Le Mans, the basic look of the GT evolved only moderately as went through Mk I and II iterations. Most of the changes were under the skin as Carroll Shelby took over development of the Mk II and replaced the original small-block V8 with a big-block 7.0-liter V8. There were also seven Mk III models built as road-going versions of the race car. These street-legal iterations had a longer tail with a luggage compartment and revised nose with quad-headlamps but were otherwise recognizable as the Ford GT.

Compared to a Fairlane of the era, the GT was still tiny, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

For the 1967 season, Shelby’s crew cooked up an entirely new car dubbed the Mk IV in partnership with Ford’s design studio and Kar Kraft. This lighter, more aerodynamic car bore almost no resemblance to the rest of the GT lineage but proved successful on the track. The Mk IV only raced twice in 1967, winning both races. Mario Andretti and Bruce McLaren took the checkered flag at Sebring while A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney crossed the line first at Le Mans after hitting record speeds of 212 mph on the Mulsanne straight. The Mk IV was retired after rule changes outlawed its 7.0-liter engine. For 1968 John Wyer updated the Mk I with a 5.0-liter V8 and won two years in a row with the same car in its now iconic form including blue and orange Gulf livery.

Ford GT40 on the grid at Goodwood Revival

Ford GTs at the Goodwood Revival, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

The GT40 in its various incarnations chalked up numerous victories on the world’s great racetracks until 1969 when rule changes that favored prototypes at Le Mans finally ended the first GT era. With the malaise era afflicting the auto industry through the 1970s and most of the 1980s, enthusiasts dreamed of a new GT40, but aside from a brief dalliance with the GT90 concept reality kept those thoughts at bay.

The 1995 Ford GT90 concept. The V12 powerplant was created by welding the front six cylinders of one 4.6-liter V8 block to the rear six from another, courtesy Ford Motor Company Archives

The 1995 GT90 blended some of the classic GT40 design cues with faceted surfaces not unlike the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter. This design language became known as New Edge and inspired a few production cars like the 1998 Mercury Cougar and the 1999 Focus before being abandoned. The GT90 used some chassis componentry from the Jaguar XJ220 but was never seriously considered for production.

2002 brought the launch of the second-generation GT. Unlike the radical looking GT90, the 2002 design concept version was little more than an update to the 1965 GT40 MkII, stretched out enough to meet modern crash safety requirements and make it look proportionally correct with contemporary road wheels and tires. While this car was anything but original, the iconic lines retained the classic beauty of the 1960s edition. The response was so tremendous that Ford decided to proceed with a limited production run of the GT that began in 2003, just in time to celebrate the centennial of Ford Motor Company. Between 2003 and 2006, Ford built a little more than 4,000 second-generation GTs.

2006 Ford GT, courtesy Ford Motor Company

Like the original GT, the modern edition was constructed largely from aluminum and featured V8 power in the back. Four decades of progress meant that the new GT engine was based on Ford’s modular architecture with twin-cam, four-valve heads topping an aluminum block. A supercharger boosted output to 550-horsepower and 500 lb.-ft. of torque, the most ever up to that time for a road-going Ford engine. Despite meeting all contemporary safety and emissions standards, the new GT could hit a top speed of 205 mph in part thanks to subtle tweaks to the body shape that helped keep it planted to the road.

Unlike the 1960s-era cars that were expressly built with the intent of defeating Ferrari at Le Mans, Ford never had a factory race program with the second generation model. Not that that stopped privateers from taking them to the track with some degree of success, most notably Robertson Racing. Robertson successfully ran a pair of GTs prepared by Kevin Doran in the American Le Mans Series for several seasons and even brought the GT back to Le Mans in 2011 where they managed a third place in the GTE Am class against a field of much newer cars.