Although the new production car and the original race car both share the mystique of the Ford GT name, they do not share a single dimension. The new car is more than 18 inches longer and stands nearly 4 inches taller. Its new lines draw upon and refine the best features of Ford GT history and express the car’s identity through modern proportion and surface development.
Contrary to typical vehicle development programs, the engineering challenge was to build the supercar foundation within the concept’s curvaceous form – and to build it in record time for Ford’s centennial. The well-defined project afforded the engineering team early insight: This car required a new way of doing business since the concept car was only 5 percent production-feasible.
Body engineers sought new techniques to shape the car’s sexy lines because normal stamping techniques couldn’t deliver these curves. But would the curvy door panels accommodate the requisite slide-down window? After extensive computer modeling and concessions by designers and package engineers, the window freely moved within the door panel. Aerodynamicists couldn’t bend the exterior sheet metal; instead, they came up with unique solutions under the body.
The result: a technological wonder wrapped in the Ford GT40 concept form.
