Ford GT40 vs Ferrari Again

I see your point now. About the asking price, some are just rediculous. I've seen a few on Ebay asking for 200k; 60k or 40% over msrp. Markup galore, hehe.

Do you have any specs/pics on the Cobra? 289, 351, 427?? My old man's a Cobra nut, and is dieing to know .

 

Its a 427.I bought it in mexico in the early 80's.Went through a 10 year resto.lol.I do have pics,will dig them up.

 

My mistake, thank you for the correction. I'd love to see the car the next time I'm in the area (I won't be joining in on the fun at Pebble, best friend is getting married later in the year and family is more important than cars).

 

Much more important!
I had her out today. As it was a bit cold I couldn't really warm her up. On the day they used cardboard and duct tape as a thermostat. She'll be here when you vist.
Best

 

It seems to me Ford or any car manufacturer would want to be fair with reporting their engine HP. It may be that the HP distribution is so wide some engins including the one you are reporting is putting out 380 hp at the wheel or more. That means their process is out of control and the best they can average and report is a 390 hp engine. There are probably some that are much less...I am not sure why Ford anybody would want to understate their selling point, unless it were true. After all these are muscle cars, and by definition that means hp and torque.

 

I think the average for the Mustang Cobra is something like 360rwhp, with the ones putting down 380rwhp being quite rare. Still, 360rwhp is underrated and a bit more than the published 390. I've noticed the same with the S/c'ed 5.4's in the Harley edition F-150 and the Ford Lightning. Both are a bit underrated as well. Then there's the newer Mustang Mach 1 which is rated at 305hp at the crank, yet puts down 270-280rwhp stock. Seems like a lot of Fords most recent performance offerings are putting down a bit more than their ratings would have us believe.

The same with GM and the camaro z28. My buddies 2001 camaro z28 is rated at 310hp, yet it put down 312rwhp without a single mod. Having peeked at a ls-1 camaro board, seems most are putting down 300rwhp+. Not bad for a 310hp car. Dodge has also done this with their new neon SRT-4 thingy. First year they were out, ratings were a conservative 215hp i believe. Yet dyno's where showing something like 230hp to the front wheels. Crazy stuff. Some of the domestic offerings are like that.

I really can't say why they do this. Maybe they do it for bragging right. Maybe insurance is cheaper with the lesser rating. I can't say.

 

check this link out

it say s that the gt40 produces over 560rwhp

http://www.mustangweekly.com/2004/march/news/n03-6-3rd.asp

 

There is not a production car available for a test at this time.What you read and hear is speculation,factory estimates,or "courtesy car" tests.

 

560HP, and only 7 seconds faster than the Modena around Laguna Seca??? Why is that? I read the article and it said the car handles better the Modena and the engine is so torquey that one does not need to squeeze the power out by keeping the revs high. What's the redline set for the engine?

 

Seven seconds is a HUGE margin. Red line isn't as important as torque curve and gearing. At LeMans mine went 223 at 6500 rpm. My 427 has no problem reving past 7,000 but to play it safe they limited it to 6500 for the 24. At LeMans a 7 second per lap difference at Leguna would be a stomping of hundreds of miles and several hours over the 24.

 

I understand your point, Seven seconds is a huge margine in a 24 hour race provided the car laps consistantly 7 seconds faster and goes through the finish line. O.K. it did 30 or so years ago, hopefully we live to see it do again when the car is introduced. But I think they will run in a different class than the Modenas unless they lower the HP or add on some weight. I think to be fair they sould compare the lap times to a supercharged Modena or the GT version that runs in the Lemans series.

 

I think Ford has been underrating their performance engines since the '01 Cobra debacle.

For those who don't know, Ford rated the '01 Cobra at 320hp, but when Car and Driver tested it, the results didn't match up. Ford eventually admitted that several components had been modified for the production models, so the engine was not actually cranking 320 hp. They tried to get the thousands of cars that they had already sold up to the rating via exhaust tweaks and they cancelled the '02 Cobra.

So, after that black eye, and the inevitable lawsuits that followed, I feel that Ford will always error on the side of caution when rating its future engines. Because of all of this, I'm also certain that Ford won't send ringers to the magazines.

 

You are totally correct.
I for one think it would be wonderfull to see a grid at LeMans that included racing versions of the sportscars we drive and included Ferrari, Lambo, Jag, Aston, MB, BMW, P, etc. Making it a fair race would be hard but it I think it could be done and it would be great to watch.

 

If I said that Dauer makes a street legal version of the 917 it was a mistake I meant 962. By the way I say rip off about the Maclaren F1 because of its original sticker price, Maclaren knew that Ferraris F40 were selling at one million at the moment(second hand), that 959's, and many other cars were selling way above their true value. So they were smart, why sell the F1 for $250,000 or $400,000 when they knew that second hand they would go for a million, they just sold it for a million and took care of the speculators. You know as well as anybody that the carmaker with the most wins at LeMans is Porsche and that the 962 has the most wins ever, so what I am talking about its that neither Ferrari nor Ford has the title as the supreme in the endurance races and that the 962 has done everything to be called the ultimate LeMans racer up to date. You or anyone with 1 million U.S. could buy one and have it made street legal and claim that you got the best of the best and can blow away the competition as if there was one. I love the Maclaren F1 and I like the Ford GT40 and the Ferrari P4 but the truth is that the best is the Porsche at endurance and Ferrari at Formula 1. If I am wrong let me know.

 

This may be a more fair comparason to the Ford's power plant, although the displacement is still about 1.8 litre less for the Modena in this config.:

Ferrari's 360 Modena is one of the world's greatest cars – no doubt about that. But it's not special enough for one of the world's greatest tuning houses.
The famous German company Koenig has set about reworking the baby Ferrari to turn it into a fire-breathing monster, capable of leaving any of its rivals for dead – even the forthcoming Porsche 911 Turbo.

Boasting nearly as much power as Ferrari's Formula One race car, the Koenig KS360 Modena is the first evolution of the ultra-desirable supercar. The 3,586cc 40-valve V8 motor – which can still be seen under the glass engine cover – has been stripped down to fit special Mahle pistons, which are lighter than the originals. These lower the compression ratio to allow for a pair of modified Garrett T04 turbochargers. The exhaust is custom-made for this car. At maximum boost, the V8 produces an awesome 600bhp at 7,200rpm – equating to 165bhp a litre!

Torque is also up to 570Nm at 6,000rpm and, according to Koenig, the KS360 Modena blasts to 60mph in 3.3 seconds and storms on to an estimated 210mph top speed The standard suspension system has remained untouched. Ferrari uses a semi-active set-up, and the computer does the work of levelling the car and hardening or softening the damping as is deemed necessary. This proves perfectly able to compensate for the additional power, as is the standard braking system.

http://www.fantasycars.com/1/News/Twin-Turbo_600hp_Ferrari_360_M/twin-turbo_600hp_ferrari_360_m.html

 

IMHO:

I would never take a preserved, authentic Le Mans-raced 962, and gut it and put in a nice comfy leather interior and all the mod cons. Restorations should be true to the era, and I think that you are doing a disservice to cars as historical artifacts by converting them in the way that Dauer evidently does.

 

I am with you but all I am saying is that the choice is there, also other people have made them street legal but didn't change the 962s in that matter. Also know that one of those cars was switch back to full race car again and won at LeMans and then they transformed it back to the "street way" by Dauer so there is no way to really judge him.

 

Just a point about there being 2000 people waitinf for a car in the UK. Here, and I think it's true for the whole of the EU, a car dealer is not allowed to sell a car above list price. What this means in reality is that we have speculators who believe they can buy a car at list and then sell if for a healthy marging, pockeying the difference. This always leads to waiting lists for new cars, not just for things like the GT40 which is in very limited supply but almost anything. Waiting lists are as such no measure at all of the real demand.

 

So how is this a rip off? Actually, its one of the few times were a niche product was priced correctly for the market.

 

so ford suddenly has a conscience??? i serious doubt it.. i wouldnt put anything past them...after all , this from the same com pany that built the exploder...i mean explorer..whats a few human lives anyway?

 

Last year's Pole and this year's fastest testing times were all under 3:33. Toss the configuration of those vehicles aside and imagine how much difference 7 seconds makes on each lap. Yowza.

 

do we know if anybody is planning to campaign a new GT on the lemans circuit?

doody.

 

Testa
P is a great Co. with a long and proud racing history. That said they were there in 66,67,68,69 and they lost to Ford. It's as unfair to compare a 962 to a Mk-IV as it would be to compare a 962 to an Bentley Speed 8. Time marches on, rules and the track change.
The Dauer 962 is not street legal in the US nor could it be unless the law changes which IMHO is unlikely.
Wax
Leguna is much shorter than LeMans so the difference would be even greater.
(In 1967 my MK-IV turned a 3:22 but since then the track has been changed to slow the cars down. It's now all about downforce. Last's year's Bentley topped out at 185 vrs my MK-IV's 223 but it turned similar lap times on a MUCH slower track) At Speed the Bentley produces 3000lbs of downforce. My car produced lift!
Doody
Sadly today only a full outfactory effort would have a chance and IMHO that will not happen.

 

haha, you should tell about the breaks too. How drivers had to ease pretty gingerly into breaking... you can tell better than I.

 

Compared to todays cars my MK-IV didn't have breaks. Dan Gurney talks about having to back off way before the end of the Mulsanne to allow the front wheels to settle down before he started braking and how hauling down from 223 to 25 for the Mulsanne cornor took a long, long time.