Ford announces the’23 Ford GT Mk IV supercar, calling it “the ultimate and most extreme track-only Ford GT ever.”
Developed in cooperation with Canadian automotive-engineering company Multimatic, the final track-only Ford GT features a twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V-6 targeting more than 800 hp, race transmission, carbon fiber “long tail” body and extended-wheelbase chassis for improved on-track handling, as well as Multimatic’s Adaptive Spool Valve suspension.
Ford is not specifying engine displacement, but indicates it will be larger than the third-generation Ford GT’s twin-turbo 3.5L V-6.
The Mk IV is available to order from Multimatic with production limited to 67 units hand-built in Markham, ON, Canada. The number honors the original 1967 GT Mk IV race car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year.
“The original GT Mk IV held nothing back for max track performance, and the new Ford GT Mk IV brings it in the same way,” Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports, says in a news release. “With an even higher level of motorsport engineering and performance, plus a completely new carbon-fiber body that is functional and striking, the Mk IV is the ultimate sendoff of the third-generation supercar.”
Ford will begin a new client application process (https://www.ford.com/performance/gt/mk-iv/) for the $1.7 million supercar, with client selections confirmed in first-quarter 2023. Deliveries will begin in late spring 2023.
“Multimatic’s brief was to create the most extreme final version of the Ford GT, and the Mk IV is the outcome,” says Larry Holt, executive vice president, Multimatic Special Vehicle Operations Group. “A unique larger displacement engine, proper racing gearbox, stretched wheelbase and truly radical body has resulted in an unprecedented level of performance.
“We are proud to have been a part of the third-generation GT from its inception to this amazing swan song and consider it a significant chapter in Multimatic’s history.”
The Ford GT Mk IV has a history of technological advances. Building on the Ford GT Mk II’s 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans in 1966, Ford redesigned the car from scratch with state-of-the-art technology and engineering available to create the 1967 Ford GT Mk IV.
Ford engineers and Kar-Kraft, an independent race shop closely affiliated with Ford, developed a new lightweight chassis using adhesive bonded honeycombed-aluminum construction with a more aerodynamic body and named it the “J-Car” because it was built to the new FIA Appendix J rules. Combined with the 7.0L 427 Ford V-8 and a special transaxle with its own cooling system that carried power to the rear wheels, the ’67 Ford GT Mk IV was 9 ins. (229 mm) longer than the Mk II and built specifically to dominate global endurance racing.
Ford sold 762 units of the GT from 2017 through 2021 and 89 in the first 11 months of 2022, according to Wards Intelligence.
