One to Buy: unrestored 1 of 3 built 1966 Ford GT40 Mk2 Lightweight
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Having thundered around Le Mans with a pair of experimental GT40s running enormous seven-litre engines in 1965, Ford became convinced big block motors were the route to success at ultra high speed tracks like the French 24 Hour classic and its sister event over at Daytona.
For 1966, a dozen GT40s were built up to what became known as Mk2 trim, one of which was based on the unique X1 Roadster trialled in late 1965. Three were special lightweight variants dubbed XGT-1 through XGT-3 assembled by Shelby American and destined for the Alan Mann satellite outfit over in England.
While XGT-1 and XGT-2 saw action at Le Mans in ‘66 (which Ford famously won with one of the sister Mk2s), owing to time constraints XGT-3 was not completed until shortly after the race.
The car initially served as a publicity tool for Ford’s post-Le Mans victory tour and to this end was painted black with white stripes to match the race-winner driven by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon. A little later, XGT-3 was refinished in the red and white-striped colour scheme you see today.
XGT-3 was retained by Ford until 1977, since which time it has resided with just four private owners. Thankfully, all of these custodians have resisted the temptation to either take the car historic racing or restore it and XGT-3 has instead been carefully preserved.
Unsurprisingly then, renowned GT40 expert Ronnie Spain considers XGT-3 to be the most original Mk2 GT40 in existence: "There are other Mk2s which have been fabulously restored to original configuration, but only XGT-3 is in that original condition still".
