1997 GTD 40

The Ford GT 40 is one of the greatest racing cars, from one of the greatest racing periods. The 1960s were the time of the famous Ford / Ferrari battles at Le Mans and in the World Sports Car championship and allegedly, the GT40's very existence arose out of Ford's desire, and then failure, to purchase Ferrari. What ensued is one of the greatest motorsport rivalries of all time between Ferrari, who had won Le Mans six consecutive times (1960-1965) and Ford, who then won Le Mans four consecutive times (1966-1969) proving that they too, could compete at an international level. Consequently, given the car's competition pedigree and beautiful, Eric Broadley styling, original GT40s are worth millions of pounds today. As a result, high quality, dimensionally accurate recreations that employ original Ford power plants are an affordable and enjoyable way to experience one of the all-time great cars.

GTD Supercars were the best known and most respected builders of GT40 Replicas in the country in the late Nineties and had the necessary facilities and talented engineers to make an excellent job of it. They had started out originally as agents for the KVA GT40 Replica but it wasn't long before they had redesigned the front and rear of the KVA chassis and were selling the cars as GTDs. As is often the way with bright young engineers, they weren't happy until they were building the whole car to their own standards and many of these still take pride of place at GT40 events today.

This GTD 40 was ordered as a specific project by the current owner and hand built to the highest specifications. The project was commenced in 1996 and the car was assembled under the direct supervision of Ray Christopher, managing director of the company and designer of the GTD 40.

The original plan was to build the car around a full-race engine and the rest of the specification reflected that, with proper GT 40 seats, dashboard and trim with authentic rims and asymmetric 'P-Zero' tyres. Race suspension as featured in the original GT 40 was fitted, twin petrol tanks with separate fillers are situated in the door sills of the car and the engine bay features twin petrol pumps. The cockpit has two level air-conditioning and the vehicle is fitted with uprated cooling fans to counteract engine heating.

More recently, the braking system has been uprated and a strengthened Renault gearbox added to handle the higher levels of torque produced by the Windsor 351 tuned engine. Work was carried out by Southern GT who now hold the license to service GTD 40 cars and full details of the build and subsequent services along with invoices and the photographic record of the car's construction are available.

The engine itself is a highly tuned and modified Windsor 351, although normally GTD 40 cars are fitted with a stock 302 cu in (4.94 litres) V8 Ford engine. This highly tuned Windsor 351 engine was commissioned in the early 90s for a race car project which was not completed. The engine was built and assembled by Charles Deberry, renowned engine tuner and engineer in Connecticut, USA. Deberry specialised in preparing engines for the NASCAR series with engines up to 400 cu in (6.4 litres).

The engine block (code number 371/38182585) is a Windsor 351, stroked and bored to 390 cu in., heat treated and normalised, machined and blueprinted and finally x-rayed. The pistons are TRW forged 11.5 to 1 compression under high-performance hemispherical custom Allan Root heads. The valves are Ford Motor Sport stainless steel waisted 1.95 inlet, 1.65 exhaust while the valve springs are Barnes dual. The retainers are Isky chrome moly and the collets and keepers are from Manley Competition. The crankshaft is Ford Custom, nitrided, micro polished and filleted and the flywheel is a custom competition steel component. Camshafts are fully balanced competition cams, 290° duration, and there is a separate baffled oil sump. Rotating and reciprocating masses have all been balanced. The engine was then run on a Dyno indicating around 480 bhp, and then imported to the UK.

The original race project did not take place and therefore the engine was available to purchase by the lucky current owner. A Holley carburettor was added and the engine mounted in the completed GTD 40 chassis. The engine has considerable potential to produce a higher output but remains at approximately 480 bhp for sensible road and occasional track use.

This GTD 40 has been commissioned and owned by the current vendor for almost 20 years, since its completion in 1996 and represents a rare opportunity to acquire a factory car built to race industry standards and overseen directly by Ray Christopher. The car is massively quick as a track-day car, remains sufficiently civilised to use comfortably on the road and in Gunmetal Grey/Silver, presents superbly.

Please note the private registration plate '3HCR' will be retained by the vendor.