The Ford GT40 was supposedly developed as a result of Ford's last minute failure to buy Ferrari, which they were keen to do in the early 1960's. A deal had been apparently reached when Enzo Ferrari had a change of heart and decided to sell to Fiat instead. Ford was less than pleased, and decided to beat Ferrari at it's own game by building a car capable of winning at LeMans.
Between 1960 and 1965, Ferrari won the great French 24hr race seven times in a row, and it would have been nine times in a row if they had not been beaten by Aston Martin in 1959 (a Ferrari Testarossa had won in 1958). To say they were dominant would have been quite an understatement! But little did anyone know that Ferrari's 1965 triumph would be it's last to date at LeMans.
The GT40 was developed from a new Lola mid-engined coupe style sports racer. The Mark I GT40 looked similar to the MkII, but was not sufficiently developed to have much success. The MkII, new for the 1966 season, had a mighty 7 litre Ford V8 in a well sorted mid-engined chassis that handled well. It's only weakness was it's poor brakes (a common affliction for any sports racer in the 60's as braking technology had not kept up with the latest generation of higher powered, heavier sports racers).
It was a huge success, winning pretty much everything it entered including LeMans (finishing 1-2-3!) in 1966. Similar success was had at the Daytona 24hr race and at Sebring. I also have the 3rd place finishing GT40 as driven by Mark Donohue and Walt Hangsen at Daytona '66 in my collection (another stunning piece from Exoto!).
Ford again won at LeMans in 1967 (with the modified MkIV GT40), and then decided to rest on it's laurels. But despite the withdrawal of the factory Ford team from the '68 and '69 seasons, the GT40 went onto further success in the hands of privateer teams. The 7 litre MkII was ineligible to race at LeMans in '68 and '69 due to rule changes, so a new version with a 5 litre engine was developed. In the hands of John Wyer's Gulf sponsored team, the same GT40 won the race both 1968 and 1969! In 1970, Porsche finally developed the 917 into a LeMans winner and the GT40's reign at LeMans was over.
Exoto make this superb model of the MkII GT40, and it is listed in their catalogue as the "prototype". I'm not too sure if this is accurate, as the model has many features that appeared on the GT40 over time, such as the raised portion in the door over the drivers head to allow slightly more headroom for taller drivers (the GT40 was a tight fit for tall racers as the car only stood 40 inches in height-hence the name, GT"40"!). This protruberance was known as the "Gurney hump" as star American driver Dan Gurney required it to be able to fit in the car. (Dan was well over 6 foot in height). The periscope air intakes on the rear deck were not on the first versions of the MkII either I believe. More correctly I think it would be fair to call this model an unliveried MkII GT40 with many of the features of the various different race versions on the one model.
I had not planned to get this version (I mostly prefer liveried models with known race histories) but I got an excellent deal on this version from a fellow collector in the USA which I could not pass up! Besides, it is the first 1:18th GT40 released by Exoto and hence is nice to have! The black paintwork is indeed excellent and the model looks low and mean!
The detail here is incredible. Both the front and rear bodywork sections open to reveal lots of intricate detail, including a 7 litre Ford V8, the regulation luggage holders between the rear wheels (an archaic rule for LeMans which required all "sports cars" to be capable of transporting two regulation sized suitcases) and of course all the exhaust plumbing too. The front bodywork opens in two sections to show much of the cooling system and front suspension. The smaller of the two front openings is held shut by two metal wires with fastening pins which are tricky to do up!). The interior is extremely well done, and both seats have the many small metal holes in them which were meant to allow cooling air circulate around the drivers back, but which in practice did not really work!
Overall a lovely model of a classic racing car.
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