Valuated at $2.5 million or thereabouts, the GT40 Mk III in the following video is one-of-seven third iterations ever built, one of only four with left-hand drive. The 289 small-block V8 cranks out 306 ponies, and all that suck-squeeze-bang-blow is dispatched to the rear axle by a stick shift.
Very light at 2,682 pounds (1,217 kilograms), the GT40 Mk III can be pushed to 165 miles per hour (266 kilometers per hour) while 60 mph (97 kph) takes 5.3 seconds according to Ford. These figures were impressive back in the day, but still, how do they stack up against the far more modern GT?
Owned by the Petersen Museum, the old-school supercar obviously spins the rear tires off the line. Launched by museum’s conservator, the GT40 Mk III didn’t win the first and second quarter-mile races in the following video. It arguably makes the better exhaust sound, though, but the GT fielded by Doug DeMuro is mightier and spices things up with supercharger whine.
Dougie can’t launch off too well either on the first attempt, but he’s much better with the accelerator pedal’s modulation on the second run. These being said, care to guess how big of a gap separates these two bad boys?
The first shootout ends in 15.59 seconds for the golden-ager supercar, then the elapsed time improves to 15.16 seconds. As expected, the GT makes easy work of its spiritual predecessor with 14.42- and 12.47-second runs in the hands of someone who doesn’t have too much drag-racing experience.
