With Henry Ford II determined to beat Ferrari, the GT40 was the vehicle to do it after years of troubled development and near bottomless funding. Known as the Ford GT, the ’40’ was in reference to the height of the car being 40 inches, which was the minimum height allowed by the regulations.
What set the GT40 apart were the large displacement engines that were bigger than what Ferrari were running at the time. The first MkI GT40’s ran with 289-cubic-inch (4.7L) V8’s which were later increased to 427-cubic-inches (7.0L) to improve power and performance further.
