Fifty years ago, the Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] together with Shelby American secured a historic 1-2-3 finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a trio of GT40 MkII racers.
Fifty years ago, the Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] together with Shelby American secured a historic 1-2-3 finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a trio of GT40 MkII racers. While Ford is celebrating the anniversary with its new GT, entering the car in this year’s race, Superformance, which has a license to build replicas of the original GT40, is celebrating the anniversary with a series of special edition GT40 MkII replicas.
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Superformance plans to build just 20 examples, each of them an exact replica of the Le Mans-winning cars—right down to their right-hand-drive layout and gear shifter between the driver’s seat and door. The cars will also come with special badging, logos and features.
They will be sold as rolling chassis, which means buyers will have to find their own engine. The recommended unit is a custom 7.0-liter V-8 built by Shelby. The engine features its own badge stating what number in the limited edition sequence it is, starting with GT40 P 2050 and ending at 2069. And since this is a licensed product, Shelby will list the particular sequence number in its official registry.
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There are three colors to choose from, each representing one of the more famous personalities to have driven the GT40 at Le Mans. There’s the Bruce McLaren edition (black with silver stripes), Ken Miles edition (blue with white stripes) and Dan Gurney edition (red with white stripes).
The Superformance GT40 replicas are so exquisitely built you could consider them pieces of art. The design team paid such close attention to detail when recreating the car that over 90 percent of the replica’s parts are interchangeable with the original, including the steel monocoque chassis. Superformance’s car also gets modern touches such as air conditioning, an adjustable pedal box and Bilstein shocks with H & R springs.
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