It seems Ford isn’t quite done with the GT just yet. The MkII, which debuts at Goodwood Festival of Speed today, is a track-only version of the supercar that outguns the GTE racing version Think of it as Ford’s McLaren Senna GTR.
Costing from £950,000, it’s a lot more expensive than a ‘standard’ GT. So what makes the MkII special?
Best of both worlds
Ford’s goal with the MkII is to combine the best of both worlds: the GTE racer and the road car. The GTE, while fully competition-prepared, is hamstrung by power limitations and other regulations.
The road car, while unrestricted in terms of performance, needs to comply with occupant and pedestrian safety regulations. It needs to get over speed humps and meet emissions regulations. And it needs to have road tyres.
“The true off-the-hook performance capability of the GT hasn’t yet been fully showcased,” said Larry Holt, chief technical officer at Multimatic, which builds the MkII.
“The road car is obviously limited by the many global homologation requirements that it must comply with, and the race car suffers from the restriction of the dreaded ‘Balance of Performance’, resulting in it being 150hp down on the road car. The MkII answers the regularly asked question of ‘How would the car perform with all the limitations lifted?’. The answer is ‘spectacularly.’”
So, while the GTE produces well short of the road car’s 650hp, the MkII gets 700hp from its 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6. Unlike the road version however, the MkII has slick tyres, race-spec fixed suspension and more wing than any GT yet seen. It’s also significantly lighter than the road car, having shed 90kg.
The dual-element wing is joined at the back by a large diffuser, while a new splitter, wing louvres and dive planes balance out the front. All in, there’s up to 400 percent more downforce than the road car, and it’s capable of pulling up to 2g in corners.
Carried over from the road car are the ceramic brakes and distinctive headlights.
Cooling has also been significantly improved, with the addition of a high-capacity charge air cooler with water spray tech.
On the inside, it’s very ‘race car’. You get a bespoke Sparco race seat with a six-point harness. A passenger seat is optional, although a Motec data system is standard.
The Ford GT MkII is limited to just 45 units. To get hold of one, you’ll need to go straight to Multimatic. We suspect they won’t be available for long.