With the Ford GT40, one question outweighs all others: is it real? On Lou Costabile’s My Car Story, this yellow 1966 example gets a flat answer from the host, this is not a kit car, this is a real one. Filmed at PHP Race Engines, where builder Barry Sale has cared for its engine for a decade, it is the genuine Le Mans weapon rather than a tribute. Then it fires up. Watch and listen.
The words most likely to start a fight at any car show are simple: is it real? For the Ford GT40, that question carries more weight than almost any other car on earth. For every genuine example, there are countless faithful replicas and kit cars wearing the exact same silhouette. So when Lou Costabile stood next to this yellow-and-black 1966 GT40 for My Car Story and stated plainly that this is not a kit car, this is a real one, he was making the claim that changes everything about how you look at it.
The Question Every GT40 Has to Answer
The setting alone tells you this machine is taken seriously. The video was shot at PHP Race Engines in Wauconda, Illinois, the shop of race engine builder Barry Sale, who has been trusted with this specific car’s engine for roughly a decade. That is not a detail you get with a weekend replica. When an owner hands the same specialist his GT40’s powerplant year after year, it signals a car that is genuinely used, genuinely valuable, and cared for at a level most enthusiasts only read about.
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Ten Years With One Engine Builder
The GT40’s legend, of course, was written in blood and fuel at Le Mans, where Ford set out to humble Ferrari and did exactly that in the mid-sixties. To stand in front of a real 1966 example is to stand in front of the actual weapon from that campaign, not a tribute to it. Every proportion, from the impossibly low roofline to the wide haunches, was shaped by the singular goal of going fast for twenty-four straight hours, and it still looks like nothing else on the road.
The Sound of a Real One
But the moment that separates this video from a photo gallery is when the engine lights. Lou makes a point of capturing the sound of a real one, and that distinction matters, because the mechanical voice of a genuine GT40 is part of what makes people fall silent around it. It is the sound of racing history idling in a suburban Illinois shop. If you want to know what authenticity actually sounds like, this is it. Watch the full video and share your thoughts below.
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