Underneath its rear-mounted hood is quad-turbocharged 6.0-liter V12, putting out an estimated 720 horsepower. GT90′s body is constructed of carbon fiber, and top speed is somewhere in the 250 mph range. Check out the full press release below – and if you can make your way out to Arizona, we suggest giving a bid up for it.

Est. 720 bhp, 6.0 liter quad-turbocharged mid-engine V12, five-speed manual gearbox, four-wheel independent suspension, and four wheel ventilated disc brakes. Wheelbase: 116″

The one-off GT90 Concept Car, labeled immediately as “the world’s mightiest supercar” by Ford Motor Company on December 6, 1994, was the spiritual successor to the Ford GT40, the product of a colossal feud in the early 1960s between the Blue Oval from Dearborn and the Prancing Horse of Northern Italy. The GT90 draws from the design cues of its heritage and pays homage to the famed Le Mans-winning Ford GT40s of the 1960s, which were created after the failed attempt by Ford to buy out Ferrari.

GT40 Heritage

The failed acquisition of Ferrari only strengthened Henry Ford II’s resolve to beat Ferrari, and he therefore decided to take on the Commendatore head-on in international sports car racing. There was very little interest in this form of racing in America at the time, but Ford was prepared to gamble that European wins, Le Mans in particular, would capture the country’s imagination. He was right.

After the Ferrari debacle, Henry Ford II declared that he wanted to win Le Mans in 1966, and Ford’s Lee Iacocca and Leo Beebe were given the job of forming Ford Advanced Vehicles. Instructed by Henry Ford II to spend whatever money necessary to develop a racing program that would beat Ferrari in the most public of ways, the team went to work.

Ford’s idea was to develop a car that could be built around the 1963 Indianapolis 4.2-liter pushrod engine. The mid-engined coupe that the company had in mind was to be the very cutting edge of modern GT car design with careful attention paid to aerodynamics. Ford realized that many of their plans were echoed in the Lola GT, designed and built by Eric Broadly at his workshop at Bromley in England. Broadly, too, had seen the potential of the Ford V8 as a GT racing engine and incorporated a stock 260 cubic inch version in his car, first exhibited at the London Racing Car Show in January 1963. As it happened, the Lola GT was 40 inches high. The Ford GT would also be this height, and it is for this reason that the car was christened the GT40.

The first two prototype Ford GT40s were launched in April 1964, and the GT40′s first race was the 1,000 kilometer at the Nürburgring on May 31. Phil Hill qualified the blue and white coupe second to John Surtees’s Ferrari 275P, and although the car retired with a broken suspension bracket, the GT40 had shown its potential.

In 1965, when the project was handed over to the Shelby-American team of Cobra fame, a total of ten cars had been built. By the end of February 1965, a number of significant changes had been made to the car under the direction of Carroll Shelby, his chief engineer Phil Remington, and Ken Miles, Shelby’s test driver. The 4.2-liter dry sump Indianapolis engine was replaced with the famous wet sump 4.7-liter, 289 cubic inch V8 that powered Shelby’s Cobras and developed 385 brake horsepower.

The first race the re-worked car was entered in was the 2,000 kilometer Daytona Continental Race on February 28, 1965. The car, driven by Lloyd Ruby and Ken Miles, won the race with Bob Bondurant and Richie Ginther in a second car finishing third. Suddenly, the GT40 was on the map and a force to be reckoned with.

With the GT40 now fully developed, Roy Lunn was given the job of overseeing production of a Mark II version of the car. Work on two new cars began in the spring of 1965 at a new Ford racing subsidiary, Kar Kraft, in Detroit. The GT40 Mark II was fitted with Ford’s mighty 7.0-liter V8. The engine had tremendous torque and a wide power band and had been very successful racing in other formats. The Mark IIs were immediately quick, finishing first, second and third in the 1966 Daytona 24 Hour race; this was followed by victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring and the famous clean sweep at Le Mans, where Ford GT40s once again crossed the line first, second, and third. Ford’s gamble had paid off, and the GT40 dominated sports car racing, as intended, making it one of the most successful road/competition cars ever built.

The Source: Autoblog