No I’ve not driven a 7.0-litre MkII GT40 like that which won the race – and know of no journalist who has – but I’ve been lucky enough to drive a few 4.7-litre cars of the kind sold to customer race teams at the time. And I really have driven a P3, albeit a 1967 car, officially called a 412P but known to most as a P3/4. It is essentially a P3 updated to P4 spec, but with a two valve, carb fed version of Ferrari’s 4.0-litre V12 race motor, as opposed to the three valve fuel injected engines used in the works P4s. So close enough, I hope, for these purposes.
Despite its smaller capacity, Ferrari’s quad cam V12 would, in period, have almost certainly had more power than Ford’s pushrod V8. Today a well-built 289cu in Ford motor can produce 470bhp, but 50 years ago, I’d be surprised if it had 400bhp. The Ferrari makes 420bhp at 8,000rpm, about 30bhp short of what the ‘real’ P4 had to offer.
Both have wide sills that need to be stepped over, but the ex-Maranello Concessionaires 412P I drove had Spider bodywork, so with the GT40 door cutting so far into the roof it too feels like a Spider with the door open, both are surprisingly easy to climb aboard and slip down into their ridiculously low slung seats.