Meet the Fleet – Sportscars: Ford GT40

• BODY: Aurora
• WHEELS & TIRES: Road Race Replicas

To look at this Ford GT40, you might think the body is one of the latest Auto World releases. That would be a reasonable guess considering that, having finally figured out it was time to re-press their version of this famous car, they just issued it in red with white stripes. But that guess would be wrong; this is actually an Aurora original from the ’60’s, and while it is coincidental that AW decided to release one just like it around the time I was going to press with this “MtF” post, its also only natural: can you imagine a better livery on a GT40? After all, one of the original LeMans ’66 cars was painted just like this, wearing racing #3. This one is not supposed to be an exact replica of that famous car, hence the #27, but it could be the same car simply renumbered for another race.

The original Aurora body in red is not really a rare variation, but it is expensive these days, so I’m happy to say I got this one for a decent price in 2021, although that may be partly because the rear screw post was split badly enough that it required a repair sleeve to arrest the damage. I was unsure about fitting it with chrome wheels, but one look and I was won over: riding on the famous low profile Road Race Replicas tires, this car looks more like a miniature version of the real thing than most of even my awesome cars, which is saying something. Its not the fastest of the fleet’s 4 GT40’s, but it probably is the best looking!

So although it is not that ’66 GT40, it is a 1966 car, bearing the full race 427 V8. Although the engine is not original to the car due to having been lost in a fire in a race crash in 1969, it is a faithful recreation of the original, rebuilt to exact standards when the wrecked car was fully restored in 1977 by owner Ken “Thriller” Diller, an investment banker turned racer who wanted a GT40 since his teenage years. #27 is named “Patriot,” a fitting name for a car that carried America’s colors across the finish line in Europe’s most prestigious race. As the 1985 racing season gears up, Diller intends to put those colors across the finish line again at Drag City!