Real GT40s End Where?

[Johan]

The Rooster

[Gary Kadrmas]

The corn....

[Johan]

that's it, I'll never eat creamed corn again

[John Allen]

Originally Posted by allanfeldman

All the others that followed were either by there date of construction i.e. GT70, GT90 Ford P68, P69, or by letters and numbers G7A, C100, etc.

Just as an aside, actually one of those other Ford names was indeed related to height. Just as we had:

GT40: Category GT, height 40 inches,
so too we had:
C100: Category Group C, height 100cm.

And yes, I know the Ford GT wasn't actually a "GT" according to the rules, but Ford thought it was.

The C100 name was in fact a deliberate act by Ford to use the same designation system as used for the GT40. I was at Le Mans scrutineering in 1982, when the two white and blue C100s turned up. I thought to myself "Am I witnessing the start of another epic story of Le Mans competition, something to rival the history of the GT40?" Er, sadly, no, I wasn't. Apologies for the digression, everybody.

John

[allanfeldman]

Thanks John for the information on the height of the C100 being in metric. You learn something new all the time. And snap 1982 was the one and only time I have actually been to the Le Mans 24 hour race and I was disappointed in the demise of the C100's and the dominance of the 956 Porsches.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying about the name of the Ford GT. I never said it was not called a GT (I do not think it was built in sufficent numbers to be put in the GT catergory!). Except in thought it was in the prototype catergory as so few had been produced when it first started racing. And then was under the Group 4 catergory later on in its life. So maybe your right in thinking Ford thought it was!?
It was the insistance of calling it a GT40 (though not officially) in 1963/4 when the pre production chassis were number GT.... And not GT40/P when the production run started (fully built definitative nosed cars) in May 1965.
I am not saying the GT40 was not called by that name I am only questioning when (officially)! To me unless someone can come up with the information to the contrary, May 1965 was the official naming of the Ford GT40. And I do not subscribe to unbuilt chassis or part built cars, being called by that name just because they were prefixed with GT40/P.
Regards Allan