Famous Ford Race Cars

Regardless of the type of racing the Ford Motor Company has a long and successful history in motorsports. Here are three particularly important racing cars that were developed and successfully raced by the "Blue Oval."

  1. Ford GT40 Prototype

    • The Ford GT40 was the result of Henry Ford II's decision to go head-to-head with Ferrari on the racetrack, after Ford failed in an attempt to buy the Modena shop in the early 1960s. Subsequently, he and his racing team came to Ferrari's home ground and failed in their first attempt to win at LeMans (1965). However, he persisted and the team finally ended up winning the famed endurance race four times between 1966 to 1969.

    Lotus-Ford 38

    • The Lotus-Ford was an amazing racing collaboration between Colin Chapman, Jim Clark and Ford Racing. The 38 was purpose-built to win the Indianapolis 500, and after grafting a 4.1 Liter V8 onto the rear of one of Chapman's monocoques, and after failing due a chassis failure the preceding year, the team won the 500 in 1965.

    Ford-Cobra Daytona Coupe

    • The Daytona Coupe was another amazing collaboration between Ford and Carroll Shelby. This car was built to be homologated (certified) for the FIA GT World Championship ,where Shelby's traditional Cobras were losing to coupes with regularity due to obsolescent aerodynamics. So Carroll got Pete Brock to pen a new fastback coupe, shoehorned a 4.7 Liter into Shelby's chassis and sallied forth. The result was seven major event wins, including the Sebring 12 Hour twice, a GT5.0 class win at LeMans, and the Daytona 2000 kilometer, all between 1964 and 1965.