Check out these early Ford GT40 design sketches

Monday, 22 June 2020

It must be a pretty cool job being an archivist over at Ford. For every patent for a specific bolt pattern there could be a long-lost sketch of a supercar. That's exactly what someone found hidden in the company's styling negatives collection - very early design sketches of what became the GT40 racer.

The Ford Performance Twitter account shared them about a week ago, saying they were drawn 57 years ago on June 12. Apparently, the drawings precede the first GT40 clay model by just one week and follow the Ford press release regarding the failed Ferrari acquisition by a month.

While it certainly looks like an attractive racer, development drivers (including Bruce McLaren) found that control waned at high speeds, crucial for the then-six-kilometre-long Mulsanne Straight, prompting aero tweaks before racing started in earnest.

That is a rather attractive racer. Though you can see how the development drivers encountered problems with front-end lift...

Unfortunately, reliability plagued the GT40's first season and all three entrants in the 1964 24 Hours of Le mans retired after just 12 hours.

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The following year saw the introduction of digital design processes at Ford, with a computer enlisted alongside a wind tunnel to refine the body.

Just rearranging the ducting to improve airflow showed gains of 79 horsepower while wider magnesium wheels were fitted and fibreglass replaced aluminium and steel to shave weight.

While Ford still didn't take the elusive Le Mans win in 1965, the famous one-two-three finish in 1966 made the journey worthwhile.

Interestingly, the sketches bear more than a passing resemblance to the original Mustang prototype, a mid-engined V4 concept from 1962 of which only one running test mule was built. That's probably due to the fact that it was designed by Roy Lunne, who went on to work on the GT40.