Page 26 - Experience Magazine Spring 2022

2020 FORD GT CARBON SERIES - NO RESERVE
RACING INTO THE FUTURE

THE TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED 2020 GT CARBON SERIES PAYS TRIBUTE TO FORD’S LE MANS HISTORY

Ford. Ferrari. Le Mans. Shelby. We all know how the point it would carry a $250,000 price tag.
the Ford GT40 came to be. But far less known In addition, the top brass at Ford didn’t think
or celebrated is the story behind the most Le Mans was the best fit for the Mustang.
recent iteration of the Ford GT supercar. “To be candid, I still wanted to do it,” Nair told
A few years ago during SAE International’s engineers in attendance at the conference in
WCX conference, Raj Nair, Fords’ head of global Detroit. “I was really mad,” Nair said, adding
product development and chief technology that at the time he felt the company was
officer, let it slip that the company originally “underestimating the importance of the 50th
planned to celebrate its 50th-anniversary win at anniversary” of the historic 1-2-3 win Henry
Le Mans with an S550 Mustang. Ford II and Carroll Shelby accomplished.
Code-named “Project Silver,” the Mustang was “I was just determined,” Nair said, adding, “we
intended to compete in the GTE PRO class at were going to have to do it, but we were going
the race. But in order for it to be competitive, it to have to do it differently.”
needed a lot of upgrades and modifications to

26 BARRETT-JACKSON EXPERIENCE SPRING 2022