American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln luxury brand Ford GT winds down over the next couple of weeks, Ford doesn’t seem quite ready to let go of this generation. Ford Performance and Multimatic have cooked up yet another iteration for production in 2023, the GT Mk IV. This one is a special $1.7 million track only model of which 67 examples will be built.
According to Forbes, The name and production number pay homage to the GT40 Mk IV that finished in the top four positions at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. That original Mk IV only competed in two races before being retired, Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring, winning both. The original Mk IV was a completely new design sharing very little aside from the 7.0-liter V8 with the Mk II that won in 1966. It was longer and significantly lighter than the Mk II thanks to a then-new aluminum honeycomb chassis structure. Sadly, Ken Miles died while testing the prototype in the summer of 1966 leading Ford to install a much more robust roll cage in the race cars.
The new GT Mk IV is the second track-only variant of the current GT following the 2019 Mk II. While the Mk II was closer to the Le Mans GTE-Pro class winning race cars, the Mk IV is even more radical, and the most powerful variant yet. Untethered from any racing regulations, the twin-turbo Ecoboost V6 has been reworked with a larger, undisclosed displacement to crank out more than 800 horsepower. The standard dual clutch transmission from the road cars is also replaced with a racing gearbox.
The carbon fiber bodywork is also unique to the Mk IV and probably gives a strong hint of what an Evo version of the race car might have looked like if Ford had opted to continue the race program beyond 2019. As with every modern racing car, careful management of the airflow through, over and around this body is obviously the priority.
From the expanded front fenders and barge boards behind the wheels to the longer tail and massive rear wing and diffuser, this one has clearly spent some significant time in the wind tunnel to crank up the downforce. The headlamps have reduced to the bare minimum with only the C-shaped running lamps of the production car left. The iconic cooling exits in the hood are replaced with louvers with more area for ejecting hot air. The intercooler vents ahead of the rear wheels are both taller and wider to handle the increased thermal load.
The engineers at Multimatic have also stretched the wheelbase, although again, specifics haven’t been provided.
Sources: Forbes