Last Ford GT pays homage to '67 Le Mans winner with 800 horsepower
Henry Payne
Ford unveiled the last model of its third-generation GT supercar Friday and it’s a track-only, 800-pound predator that plays homage to the 1967 Le Mans-winning, Ferrari-stomping GT Mk IV.
Merry Christmas.
Act fast, though, because Santa will only deliver 67 of these toys in keeping with the 1967 heritage. The 2023 GT Mk IV is an appropriate bookend for the supercar that debuted in 2016 with the singular purpose of winning Le Mans on the 50th anniversary of Ford’s historic triumph at the famed French endurance race with the iconic GT40. That epic event was captured in the 2019 Hollywood hit "Ford v Ferrari."
Fulfilling the script, the race-version of the GT won the GT-class title in 2016 and the production version has followed to universal acclaim beginning in 2017. The Mk IV model puts an exclamation point on the GT’s seven-year production run by celebrating the 1966 GT40’s 1967 successor, the Mk IV, which reinforced Ford’s Le Mans dominance with another win (Ford would win Le Mans four years running, 1966-69).
True to its innovative predecessor, the ‘23 Mk IV is a technical Tour de Force and the most capable Gen-3 car built. It will also deliver the car’s highest price tag: $1.7 million.
The 2023 car will likely share a lot of learning from the 2019 GT Mk II — also a limited-edition, purpose-built track car with just 45 copies delivered. The Mk II boasted 700 horsepower and a $1.2 million price tag, well above the $700,000 asking price of road-going GTs. Ford has built 250 GTs a year since 2017.
For its big price tag, the 2023 GT Mk IV will go beyond its Mk II sibling in performance. Mods include extensive front and rear aerodynamic work with a monster wing and diffuser, aero wheels, and large front spoiler. The Mk IV promises a uniquely-tuned twin-turbo V-6 engine, racing transmission, Multimatic race shock absorbers, and longer wheelbase.
“The original GT Mk IV held nothing back for max track performance, and the new Ford GT Mk IV brings it in the same way,” said Ford Performance Motorsports boss Mark Rushbrook. “With an even higher level of motorsport engineering and performance, plus a completely new carbon fiber body, the Mk IV is the ultimate sendoff.”
The 1967 racer was itself a significant advance over the GT40 Mk II that swept the Le Mans podium in 1966. The car was built for the high speeds of Daytona’s bankings and Le Mans’ long straights and was significantly more streamlined than the ‘66 race winner. The victorious red and white-striped 1967 car, driven by racing legends AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney, is on public display at the Henry Ford Museum’s “Driven to Win: Racing in America” exhibit.
With a lightweight, honeycomb-aluminum chassis, 7.0-liter V-8 engine (and steel roll cage to better protect drivers after the tragic death of driver Ken Miles in a testing accident), the 1967 race car won handily — hitting 212 mph on Le Mans’ 3.7-mile-long Mulsanne straight and averaging a record 135.48 mph over the 24-hour race.
Despite an engine displacement double that of the 3.5-liter mill in the 2023 GT Mk IV, the 1967 Le Mans car made just 500 horsepower compared to the new car’s 800. Such are the advances in technology and turbocharging in the last half century.
Interestingly, the 1967 car was the first Le Mans-winning car to be built entirely in the United States (the 1966 racer was built in England). The 2023 production GT will — like all current GTs — come from Canada, where it is assembled by Ford’s partner Multimatic.
“Multimatic’s brief was to create the most extreme final version of the Ford GT, and the Mk IV is the outcome,” said Multimatic executive vice president Larry Holt. “A unique larger displacement engine, proper racing gearbox, stretched wheelbase and truly radical body has resulted in an unprecedented level of performance.”
If you have $1.7 million in spare change lying around, you can apply for one of the 67 models at: https://www.ford.com/performance/gt/mk-iv/.
Deliveries will begin late next spring.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.