[greg-92083]

June 2016 Road & Track magazine came in the mail yesterday. The issue focuses mainly on the 2017 Ford GT that Ford is racing and plans to enter 24 hours at Le Mans this year 2016. Fielding four cars with twelve drivers. The carbon fiber body with aluminum sub frames fore and aft is powered by a mid engine 3.5L twin turbo Eco-Boost engine with a seven speed dual clutch automatic transmission. The twin exhaust pipes look like the business ends of cannons.

R & T report that the idea of racing is to find the weak links. So far the engine has been trouble free but the transmission is great for getting stuck in a gear, once 6th another car 2nd. Among the things that Ford did not expect was the sand on the Daytona track that ate up their air filters and bound up the transmissions. Or a race where the yellow flags was out more than the green. The GT's over heated since they had not planned on going around the course with the engine at idle.

Asked why Ford would spend multi-millions of dollars on this effort the reply was "To help sell more Ford cars of course." 1966 the Ford GT-40 won at La Mans 2016 the vehicle to beat is the mid engine C7 Chevrolet Corvette.

Greg Hayden
Vista, CA USA

 

[ford99]

There is a similar article in the most recent hot rod magazine. They elaborated slightly about the racing effort helps them engineer better stuff that translates to better stuff of production cars. The GT actually had a faster lap time than the Ferrari but they had some issues as you said. The issues will be overcome and the car will be very competitive.

I like how they kept the GT a secret from everyone up until the reveal at the NAIAS in Detroit last year.