Ford GT70

The Ford GT70 was a limited production sports car designed by Ercole Spada, made by Ford UK in 1970 and intended for use in the World Rally Championship. Designed to compete with high speed rally cars such as the Porsche 911 and Renault Alpine, the GT70 featured a mid-mounted engine with rear-wheel-drive. Len Bailey, who had been the chief engineer on the Ford GT40 project, was enlisted to help design the bodywork and chassis. The GT70 had little success in rallying as it suffered numerous problems such as the frame not being stiff enough, the cockpit being cramped and the V6 in the original cars having too high a centre of gravity. Rule changes in the World Rally Championship as well as the fact that the already developed Escort platform was showing more promise caused Ford engineers to abandon the platform, and in 1973 the GT70 program ended.