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About Ford GT

The Ford GT exists because of a grudge. In the 1960s Ford tried to buy Ferrari, was rebuffed, and responded by building the GT40 to beat the Italians at Le Mans. It worked: the GT40 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four years running starting in 1966, a story told and retold in books and on the big screen. The car that carries the name today is the descendant of that campaign, and every generation has traded on the same idea, that Detroit could out-engineer Maranello when it was angry enough.

The first modern revival, sold in the mid-2000s, was a faithful retro homage with a supercharged V8, a manual gearbox and styling that looked like a GT40 stretched to meet modern safety rules. The second, built from 2017, took a radically different approach: a carbon-fiber tub, a twin-turbo EcoBoost V6, active aerodynamics and a fuselage shaped with flying buttresses. Its racing version won its class at Le Mans in 2016, fifty years after the GT40's first victory, and Ford vetted buyers through an application process designed to keep it out of the hands of quick flippers.

Production of the second-generation car has ended, and the GT now lives on in special editions, track-only variants and the collector market, where low-mileage examples and rare coachbuilt one-offs command seven-figure prices. Its spirit has passed to the Mustang GTD and Ford's racing Mustangs, which carry the same message of American performance taken seriously. Rivals, when new, included the McLaren 720S, Ferrari's mid-engine cars and the Porsche 911 GT2 RS.

The Ford GT now lives mostly in the collector world, and its story is told through auction results, rare examples resurfacing for sale, coachbuilt one-offs and the occasional zero-mile car that has spent years under a cover. Racing history and anniversaries keep the GT40's legend in circulation, restorations of early cars draw intense interest, and enthusiasts watch closely for any sign that Ford might build another Le Mans-inspired supercar to settle a fresh score with Europe's best.