GT40 Review in Autocar UK
7/20/04, 07:40 AM
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Courtesy of Autocar Magazine UK:
for full article Click here
Ford GT 5.4 V8 2dr
Test Date 13 July 2004
Price when new £120,000
Ford GT
After Ford failed to buy Ferrari in the early 1960s, it decided to build its own Le Mans challenger based on a new British sports car called the Lola GT. There were reliability problems initially, but the 7.0-litre Mk2 secured an emphatic 1-2-3 victory in 1966. Ford repeated that triumph a year later when the aerodynamically optimised Mk4 GT40 won a hard-fought battle against the P4 Ferraris.
The race success didn’t end there, despite a new 5.0-litre engine limit. John Wyer’s crack Gulf-sponsored team resurrected the small-block 5.0-litre V8 Mk1, continued to develop it and won Le Mans in 1968 and ’69.
Ford attempted a road-legal spin-off with the Mk3. This featured a detuned 300bhp 4.7-litre V8 and new bodywork. The headlamps were changed and repositioned and the tail was elongated to provide luggage space. Unfortunately, the immortal GT40 lines were lost in this transformation and the Mk3 lacks the brutish presence of its brethren — it’s no surprise the new GT copies the classic Mk1 for its style.
Ford made only seven Mk3s before the project quickly faded. An early car was road-tested in the States but fell apart disastrously, earning one of the worst write-ups in memory. Autocar drove a converted Mk1 race car back in 1966 and was amazed by its phenomenal pace, handling and brakes. We struggled to hand back the keys.
Anyone thinking that the GT is an unholy alliance of Ford spare parts should think again. In its own way, this car is as properly engineered as the 1960s racers that inspired it.
The entire body (save the glassfibre bonnet) is made from aluminium and it clothes an aluminium spaceframe on which forged aluminium double wishbones are hung at each corner. The transmission tunnel is magnesium and cleverly houses the fuel tank, as far from any impact site as possible, and causing no change to the weight distribution as the level of unleaded falls.
The engine might owe its architecture to the Mustang V8, but there the similarity ends. It’s an all-alloy, 5.4-litre quad-cam powerhouse with forged pistons and an Eaton screw-type supercharger. Boosting at up to 14psi, it furnishes the GT with 550bhp at 6500rpm and a thunderous 500lb ft of torque at 3750rpm. A 500bhp Lamborghini Gallardo musters just 376lb ft of torque, a 400bhp Ferrari 360 Modena just 275lb ft.
Coping with such outsize outputs is a brand-new, six-speed gearbox designed and built in Britain by Ricardo. It is a challenge to which it rises with considerable success.
Naturally, the power is fed to the road through the rear wheels alone and with no traction control save the delicacy of the driver’s right foot. Sizeable 315/40 ZR19 Goodyear F1 tyres are the medium, with slightly more conservatively proportioned 235/45 ZR18 items in charge of the steering. Responsibility for stopping the GT falls to 355mm ventilated and cross-drilled Brembo brakes, clamped by four-piston callipers at each corner.
Interestingly, the GT’s shape would be aerodynamically unstable at speed, yet Ford’s engineers were forbidden from interfering with its outline. This is why you’ll spot a vital lip spoiler tacked on at the front and a Gurney flap on the boot lid. Underneath there is a small front diffuser and sizeable rear venturi. All of which, says Ford, makes the GT ‘remarkably uneventful’ at its claimed 205mph to
Speedo out of driver's eyeline; stalks ordinary
The GT is a car you drive on its torque and Ford has spaced its gears accordingly. At 100mph in top, there’s less than 2500rpm on the rev counter. In-gear times are meaningless taken out of context. When we say the GT will do 50-70mph in fourth in 3.7sec, it has to be remembered that this is a gear that will also take you past 180mph; the same gear in a Ferrari 360 Modena is good for no more than 120mph.
The width of these ratios makes the GT’s outright performance all the more astounding. Its 0-60mph time of 3.5sec can be put down to there being no need to change gear, but it needs two shifts to hit 100mph and still gets there in just 7.8sec.
Then again, the GT does have one of the sweetest gearshifts we can recall. You just aim the lever with a punch from the elbow and it slots home as if it were born for it. Allied to a gentle clutch, it is simplicity itself to convince any passenger there’s a consummate professional at the wheel.
Yet amid general delight, there is genuine disappointment. Now that its exhaust complies with federal noise regulations, there is no sign of the classic Detroit thunder you might expect with such a car. Ford is working on an aftermarket sports exhaust and, if you are one of its 28 lucky customers, you simply have to have it.
On the UK’s unique blacktop, the steering column rattles over bumps, while mid-corner ridges can actually deflect the car a fraction. It tramlines significantly, too. Then again, few cars reach the heights of driving pleasure attained by a GT on the right road. Grip levels are astounding, and once they’re breeched, the GT slides beautifully and more progressively than any mid-engined car has a right. We’d prefer a shade more weight and feedback from the helm and rather less kickback, but such is the feel from the chassis you never need to think where to point the front wheels – the GT has already told you.
It’s not hard to feel like a Le Mans hero with a GT to play with. Once you’ve dropped into the comfortable, leather-lined, carbonfibre seat, the chunky steering wheel can be pulled close to your chest, revealing a close-to-perfect driving position. Our only complaint is that it appears no one bothered to position the pedals for instinctive heel-and-toe changes.
The rev-counter looms large and dead ahead, flanked by small dials stretching across the dash until you reach the speedometer, infuriatingly far from your sightline. Neat aluminium toggle switches and engraved magnesium alloy on the transmission tunnel are nice touches, but are not enough to offset the disappointment of the flimsy dashboard, Mondeo stalks, window switches and mirror controls, and swathes of plastic pretending to be aluminium. For £120,000, you have a right to expect more.
There’s nowhere to store anything in the cabin unless you count the small pockets behind the seats. What luggage space there is in the nose: it’s enough for a small overnight bag and no more.
Nevertheless, the GT is a commendably civilised partner on the road. The tyres can make a comically loud noise on very rough sections, but most of the time the GT resists the assault of wind and road noise impressively.
Standard equipment includes two airbags, anti-lock brakes, air conditioning and electric windows and mirrors. You can have your wheels forged rather than cast and choose the colour of the car and its stripe. That’s it. If you want sat-nav, cruise control or any other luxury options, you’re in for a shock.
Thankfully, we weren’t expecting miracles with running costs. Drive the GT the way it was intended and you’ll sink into single-figure consumption. Drive it gently and you might tickle it up to 20mpg. The compounding irritation is the 80-litre fuel tank: we managed to nearly drain it in under 170 miles and we’d be surprised if owners got 250 miles between fills.
It is some indication of the regard in which we hold the Ford GT that we were slightly disappointed with it relative to our experience in America, yet still feel it has earned the next best thing to a perfect score.
It’s easy to pick holes in all areas of its endeavour, from its dislike of British B-roads to its deeply disappointing exhaust note. But simply having a car as awesomely beautiful and shatteringly fast at your command is a rare privilege. And that’s before you even consider its many other outstanding attributes, including its sublime gearbox and magnificent brakes.
It is a car of varied talents, one clearly born for a very different environment to that which we introduced it. We know that, however good it feels here, it will be better by far in its native America, where over 95 per cent of production is heading.
Ultimately, however, such cars stand and fall on how they make you feel at journey’s end. In the GT’s case, 10 feet tall sums it up nicely.
for full article Click here
Ford GT 5.4 V8 2dr
Test Date 13 July 2004
Price when new £120,000
Ford GT
After Ford failed to buy Ferrari in the early 1960s, it decided to build its own Le Mans challenger based on a new British sports car called the Lola GT. There were reliability problems initially, but the 7.0-litre Mk2 secured an emphatic 1-2-3 victory in 1966. Ford repeated that triumph a year later when the aerodynamically optimised Mk4 GT40 won a hard-fought battle against the P4 Ferraris.
The race success didn’t end there, despite a new 5.0-litre engine limit. John Wyer’s crack Gulf-sponsored team resurrected the small-block 5.0-litre V8 Mk1, continued to develop it and won Le Mans in 1968 and ’69.
Ford attempted a road-legal spin-off with the Mk3. This featured a detuned 300bhp 4.7-litre V8 and new bodywork. The headlamps were changed and repositioned and the tail was elongated to provide luggage space. Unfortunately, the immortal GT40 lines were lost in this transformation and the Mk3 lacks the brutish presence of its brethren — it’s no surprise the new GT copies the classic Mk1 for its style.
Ford made only seven Mk3s before the project quickly faded. An early car was road-tested in the States but fell apart disastrously, earning one of the worst write-ups in memory. Autocar drove a converted Mk1 race car back in 1966 and was amazed by its phenomenal pace, handling and brakes. We struggled to hand back the keys.
Anyone thinking that the GT is an unholy alliance of Ford spare parts should think again. In its own way, this car is as properly engineered as the 1960s racers that inspired it.
The entire body (save the glassfibre bonnet) is made from aluminium and it clothes an aluminium spaceframe on which forged aluminium double wishbones are hung at each corner. The transmission tunnel is magnesium and cleverly houses the fuel tank, as far from any impact site as possible, and causing no change to the weight distribution as the level of unleaded falls.
The engine might owe its architecture to the Mustang V8, but there the similarity ends. It’s an all-alloy, 5.4-litre quad-cam powerhouse with forged pistons and an Eaton screw-type supercharger. Boosting at up to 14psi, it furnishes the GT with 550bhp at 6500rpm and a thunderous 500lb ft of torque at 3750rpm. A 500bhp Lamborghini Gallardo musters just 376lb ft of torque, a 400bhp Ferrari 360 Modena just 275lb ft.
Coping with such outsize outputs is a brand-new, six-speed gearbox designed and built in Britain by Ricardo. It is a challenge to which it rises with considerable success.
Naturally, the power is fed to the road through the rear wheels alone and with no traction control save the delicacy of the driver’s right foot. Sizeable 315/40 ZR19 Goodyear F1 tyres are the medium, with slightly more conservatively proportioned 235/45 ZR18 items in charge of the steering. Responsibility for stopping the GT falls to 355mm ventilated and cross-drilled Brembo brakes, clamped by four-piston callipers at each corner.
Interestingly, the GT’s shape would be aerodynamically unstable at speed, yet Ford’s engineers were forbidden from interfering with its outline. This is why you’ll spot a vital lip spoiler tacked on at the front and a Gurney flap on the boot lid. Underneath there is a small front diffuser and sizeable rear venturi. All of which, says Ford, makes the GT ‘remarkably uneventful’ at its claimed 205mph to
Speedo out of driver's eyeline; stalks ordinary
The GT is a car you drive on its torque and Ford has spaced its gears accordingly. At 100mph in top, there’s less than 2500rpm on the rev counter. In-gear times are meaningless taken out of context. When we say the GT will do 50-70mph in fourth in 3.7sec, it has to be remembered that this is a gear that will also take you past 180mph; the same gear in a Ferrari 360 Modena is good for no more than 120mph.
The width of these ratios makes the GT’s outright performance all the more astounding. Its 0-60mph time of 3.5sec can be put down to there being no need to change gear, but it needs two shifts to hit 100mph and still gets there in just 7.8sec.
Then again, the GT does have one of the sweetest gearshifts we can recall. You just aim the lever with a punch from the elbow and it slots home as if it were born for it. Allied to a gentle clutch, it is simplicity itself to convince any passenger there’s a consummate professional at the wheel.
Yet amid general delight, there is genuine disappointment. Now that its exhaust complies with federal noise regulations, there is no sign of the classic Detroit thunder you might expect with such a car. Ford is working on an aftermarket sports exhaust and, if you are one of its 28 lucky customers, you simply have to have it.
On the UK’s unique blacktop, the steering column rattles over bumps, while mid-corner ridges can actually deflect the car a fraction. It tramlines significantly, too. Then again, few cars reach the heights of driving pleasure attained by a GT on the right road. Grip levels are astounding, and once they’re breeched, the GT slides beautifully and more progressively than any mid-engined car has a right. We’d prefer a shade more weight and feedback from the helm and rather less kickback, but such is the feel from the chassis you never need to think where to point the front wheels – the GT has already told you.
It’s not hard to feel like a Le Mans hero with a GT to play with. Once you’ve dropped into the comfortable, leather-lined, carbonfibre seat, the chunky steering wheel can be pulled close to your chest, revealing a close-to-perfect driving position. Our only complaint is that it appears no one bothered to position the pedals for instinctive heel-and-toe changes.
The rev-counter looms large and dead ahead, flanked by small dials stretching across the dash until you reach the speedometer, infuriatingly far from your sightline. Neat aluminium toggle switches and engraved magnesium alloy on the transmission tunnel are nice touches, but are not enough to offset the disappointment of the flimsy dashboard, Mondeo stalks, window switches and mirror controls, and swathes of plastic pretending to be aluminium. For £120,000, you have a right to expect more.
There’s nowhere to store anything in the cabin unless you count the small pockets behind the seats. What luggage space there is in the nose: it’s enough for a small overnight bag and no more.
Nevertheless, the GT is a commendably civilised partner on the road. The tyres can make a comically loud noise on very rough sections, but most of the time the GT resists the assault of wind and road noise impressively.
Standard equipment includes two airbags, anti-lock brakes, air conditioning and electric windows and mirrors. You can have your wheels forged rather than cast and choose the colour of the car and its stripe. That’s it. If you want sat-nav, cruise control or any other luxury options, you’re in for a shock.
Thankfully, we weren’t expecting miracles with running costs. Drive the GT the way it was intended and you’ll sink into single-figure consumption. Drive it gently and you might tickle it up to 20mpg. The compounding irritation is the 80-litre fuel tank: we managed to nearly drain it in under 170 miles and we’d be surprised if owners got 250 miles between fills.
It is some indication of the regard in which we hold the Ford GT that we were slightly disappointed with it relative to our experience in America, yet still feel it has earned the next best thing to a perfect score.
It’s easy to pick holes in all areas of its endeavour, from its dislike of British B-roads to its deeply disappointing exhaust note. But simply having a car as awesomely beautiful and shatteringly fast at your command is a rare privilege. And that’s before you even consider its many other outstanding attributes, including its sublime gearbox and magnificent brakes.
It is a car of varied talents, one clearly born for a very different environment to that which we introduced it. We know that, however good it feels here, it will be better by far in its native America, where over 95 per cent of production is heading.
Ultimately, however, such cars stand and fall on how they make you feel at journey’s end. In the GT’s case, 10 feet tall sums it up nicely.
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