Ford vs. Ferrari, and wins?
On the PopSci.com site…
The GT skunk works, as it’s known inside Ford—an homage to the team of Lockheed engineers who in 1943 created a World War II P-80 Shooting Star prototype in an unheard-of 143 days—is more than a simple exercise in speed; it’s a much-needed attempt to bring new luster to the company by reviving the carmaker’s daredevil DNA. In 1901, Henry Ford brazenly took on auto pioneer Alexander Winton in a 10-mile motorized-buggy race. Against all odds, Ford won, and consequently drew investors to his budding automobile enterprise. Sixty-two years later, after a failed attempt to purchase Ferrari, the founder’s grandson, Henry Ford II, issued a blank check to conquer international endurance racing, a seemingly impossible task. That challenge spawned the original GT40—a teardrop-shaped, droop-nosed, 380-horsepower wondercar. After stumbling twice at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in its first two years, the GT40 swept the first three finishing spots in 1966 to snap Ferrari’s streak of six straight wins. The car won at Le Mans three more times and, by 1970, had racked up 148 major sports car victories. By the time the last GT40 came out that year, the car had become the most revered vehicle that Ford had ever made.
Ford scheduled 16 months to accomplish this task. The project schedule was so aggressive that Ford was unable to do crash testing. To insure the saftey of this machine the “Skunk Team” used a finite-element-analysis software to predict the car’s dynamic behavior in a crash. From the software, the team discovered that the fuel tank should be placed within the central backbone of the car, for it is the safest place. Other technology was brought-in to accelerate the development process. A stereo lithography apparatus converted a digital depiction of variuos engine parts and body panels. This superplastic forming process borrowed from the aerospace industry greatly dimenised the production time of some parts from several weeks to less than a day. Overall, 20 percent of the GT’s parts, including the steering wheel, were made with stereo lithography. To briefly mention the power plant of this machine, the “Skunk Team” need to provide an 500hp engine to their chassis. So they took the bigest engine they could get a hold of, the Lincoln Navigator’s 5.4-liter, 300 hp engine. With some “small speed” tweaks they were able to meet thier goal.
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