It’s common conundrum: what livery shall I have on my 2021 Ford GT? The obvious answer is to theme it with Ford’s famous Ferrari beaters from the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours. But the really cool answer may be to forget France and pay homage instead to Daytona – and the GT40 MkII’s first endurance racing success.
This is the new Ford GT Heritage Edition
Fifty-five years ago the blue oval’s GT40 in MkII guise chalked up the first of its many endurance race successes. Co-drivers Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby led a 1-2-3-5 Ford domination in the 1966 Daytona 24 Hour Continental.
“Miles and Ruby led nearly every lap of the 24-hour race and outpaced the competition by 30 miles,” Mike Severson, Ford GT programme manager, tells us. “The win was the first time anyone had threatened Ferrari’s dominance in sports car racing and represented a turning point in the Ford GT race programme.”
The victory led quickly that year to domination of the podiums at Sebring and then and most famously at Le Mans, as portrayed by the 2019 movie Ford v Ferrari, – or Le Mans ’66, as it is known in Europe.
There have been Ford GT Le Mans heritage editions before but never a GT inspired by this less well known Daytona victory, which just makes it all the cooler in our book.
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Ford has done all the hard work for you with this special edition, which mimics the white, black and red exterior of the 1966 Daytona winning car but in a very 21st century way. So as well as Frozen White exterior paint, race-red accents, “98” roundels, gold-coloured forged alloy wheels, red monobloc Brembo brake calipers and a black Alcantara lined interior, there’s lots of exposed carbon-fibre for this special version of the 660PS supercar.
You can up the ante to carbon-fibre wheels while 40 of the cars will be available as part of a new Ford GT Studio Collection series which offers more personalisation options including customisable colours to highlight key functional elements such as the cooling ducts.
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The Daytona edition and the Studio Collection made up Ford Performance’s big news during Petersen Car Week in California last week. All the cars will be produced in 2021 and ’22 when GT production is scheduled to end.
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