The Ford GT victory this past weekend in the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours was a historic event for Ford Motor Company and one that has the entire industry buzzing.
But there is a little known story behind Ford’s return to Le Mans that many of our readers will find fascinating, as it was the S550 Mustang that was initially considered for racing development to compete in the Le Mans GTE PRO class.
As detailed by Peter De Lorenzo in his Autoextremist article, “A Winning Imperative” — in the time that Ford first started floating the idea of a Le Mans return some eight years ago until before the release of the 50th Anniversary Mustang, the company had commissioned an intense study in which Product Development Chief, Raj Nair, assembled Ford’s most skilled engineers, designers, vehicle dynamic experts and aerodynamic specialists to determine the efforts required to make the new Mustang competitive in the Le Mans GTE PRO class.
The secret undertaking was code-named “Project Silver” and with the help of its most talented employees and racing partners like Multimatic Motorsports the effort had reached as far as considering a radically different and technologically advanced Mustang complete with carbon fiber passenger cell to race in the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Of course, we know now that the project fell through. And though we would have loved to see an S550 Mustang GTE race car at Le Mans (perhaps based loosely off the GT350), the crack squad of Ford’s best and brightest already identified through Project Silver applied their expertise to the resurrected Ford GT project, and the rest is history…
Read the full story about Project Silver and join the discussion in the forums.
** Image credit to Andy Blackmore Design, used for illustrative purposes only **