I want a Hyper Car (Enzo, Pagani Zonda, Koenigsegg) in a GT40 body... then the Carbon FIbre is a must, not for weight saving/strength gain, but thats because it is what it is. It is CF.
George -- I think it's about time somebody wrote you a reality check. Fran starts to in his e-mail, but he's way more polite than I am.
First of all, much of the performance achieved by the "hyper cars" you list comes from their sophisticated aerodynamics, chassis, suspension, wheel/tire technology and brake technology and the millions their designers spent on integration, testing and tuning of those sub-systems into an overall system that works harmoniously, safely and reliably. When I use the word "performance" I mean
overall performance along all the dimensions: acceleration, top speed, cornering, braking, ride quality, reliability and safety. Any idiot can stuff a twin-turbo mega-motor in a Yugo and make it accelerate fast and fly off the ground with the next gust of wind. But that's got nothing to do with Enzos and Zondas. There is a lot more to those cars than engines.
Just for starters, you are not going to be able to achieve that kind of aerodynamic performance because if you did, when you were done the car would no longer look like a GT40. There's a reason those other cars don't even resemble a GT40: 50 years and millions of dollars of aerodynamic development by world class manufacturers and race teams.
As Fran suggests, power goes up as the third power of velocity. After about 100 hp/liter, engine costs go up as an exponential function of power. Chassis and brakes do the same. IOW, beyond the performance level of a "vanilla" 500 hp GT40 you are going to run into a brick wall cost function where every additional mph is going to cost you several times what the previous one did. This is
not a linear business.
You clearly don't have the technical knowledge to specify the suspension and chassis designs needed. Who is going to do that for you, and how is that sophisticated automotive engineer with a professional racing background going to be paid for the months of labor it will take him to do that design and development work, have it all prototyped and tested, and then provide it to you in quantity 1?
Secondly, you describe your shift from '05 Ford GT to '66 GT40 as a cost savings. A "normal" '66 GT40 genuinely capable (barely) of 200 mph with 500 hp is going to cost you at least $100k.
The '05 Ford GT is only another $50K and
already has performance comparable to your "hyper cars". So you changed directions entirely for the sake of $50,000. What you are saying you want to do (start with a '66 GT40, add CF bodywork, custom interior, "modify" for overall performance of an Enzo or Zonda) cannot be done for even twice what an '05 Ford GT costs. It is an extreme example of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The GT40 was a state-of-the-art racing car in the late 60s but by the mid-70s was a technically obsolete has-been, right down to the nuts and washers. Today it would be clobbered in a race with any number of street cars.
My upshot is this: it's clear you personally don't have the technical knowledge to achieve what you want to achieve. It's also clear that the cost of "buying" that technical knowledge is way out of your league if you think the difference in price between a GT40 and a GT is significant. And to be focussed on issues like whether the body is CF or something else shows a lack of appreciation of the difficulties of such a design and development exercise. You might as well tell us you want to turn a Cessna 172 into an F18 and you already know what the seat upholstery should look like.
So, if what you want is a car that looks like a GT40, has performance in the same general vicinity as an Enzo or Zonda, and that you can customize somewhat (i.e. redo the interior and significantly raise the power of the engine) there is really only one way to do that: buy an '05 Ford GT and then spend another $100k on it. With that money you can put whatever kind of headlights on it you want. And you might be able to out-drag the Zonda.
Forget the GT40; you can't afford the engineering it would take to do what you say you want to do. I don't even think it's possible simply for aerodynamic reasons. If you could, it would make more sense to buy an Enzo or a Zonda and modify
that car to look like a GT40.
So, how about we move this thread to
The Ford GT Forum?
If, on the other hand, you can start with the question "I have $X to spend, what would be the best way to spend the money solving the problems A, B and C that GT40s have?" it might drag this back to being a productive discussion about GT40s.
So, what are A, B, C and X?
(PS to Jimmy Patton: thank you.)