Superformance GT40 MKI

The original Ford GT40 won Le Mans outright four years running, a low, wide shape built to do one thing better than anything else on the road. This Superformance GT40 MKI is a licensed continuation of that shape, chassis P2534, finished at the factory in a deep olive green with Gulf-orange and Wimbledon white stripes running its length. It arrived at Crown as a genuine rolling chassis, complete and correct, waiting on the one thing that actually turns a shape into a car: an engine.

That engine is a 427 cubic inch aluminum V8 built by Prestige Motorsports, dyno tested before it ever left the engine shop, breathing through natural 8-stack induction and a Holley Terminator X system that keeps a genuinely vintage-looking intake running on modern electronic fuel injection. Behind it sits a Quaife five-speed transaxle, the same ZF-style unit that has lived behind GT40 engines for decades, sourced and fitted specifically for this car. Its owner has settled on number 28 for the doors, in a numeral style drawn from the Le Mans-winning GT40s of the 1960s.

The crate engine arrived at Crown in July, and the shop has been working through it since: uncrating and inspecting the long block, prepping the transaxle on its own stand, and fabricating the custom brackets and structure a genuine GT40 install demands, since nothing about fitting a modern drivetrain into a monocoque this specific comes off a shelf. Its owner chose a full leather interior with seats built out for taller drivers, and satin black roll bars and wheels to keep the exterior’s olive green and orange scheme from getting shouty anywhere else.

This is not a finished car yet, and there is no pretending otherwise. It is an engine on a stand, a transaxle being fitted, and a body that already knows exactly what it is going to look like once the rest catches up to it.