The new hypercar with which Ford will bid for its first outright Le Mans 24 Hours victory in 58 years will use the 5.4-litre ‘Coyote’ V8 from its Mustang GT3 racer.
Ford announced last year that it would enter the full FIA World Endurance Championship with an LMDh hypercar in 2027, and it has now revealed the powertrain that it will use. It has also issued a teaser of the car, which is currently undergoing wind tunnel development ahead of an on-track debut in the second half of this year.
This gives Ford the chance to win at Le Mans for the first time since it claimed four straight victories from 1966 to 1969 with the GT40.
Under LMDh rules, manufacturers must use a chassis provided by one of four companies (Ford has selected French constructor Oreca), to which it can then fit bespoke styling elements. A spec hybrid system is employed but manufacturers can use their own combustion engines. System output is capped at 671bhp and all cars are rear-wheel-drive.
Ford has chosen to use the naturally aspirated 5.4-litre engine from its existing Mustang GT3, which is based on the V8 used in the road-going Mustang.
Dan Sayers, Ford Racing’s hypercar boss, said that ”when you have an engine this iconic in your arsenal, you don’t look for alternatives”. He added that “you lean into your DNA” and described the V8 as a “bridge between the legends of 1966 and the future of 2027”.
All four of the GT40s that won Le Mans in the 1960s featured a V8 engine. A 7.0-litre unit was used in 1966 and 1967, before rule changes meant a switch to a 4.9-litre unit for its wins in 1968 and 1969.
Sayers said that for the first time, the V8 engine was being developed entirely in-house, by a team combining engineers at Ford headquarters in Michigan with input from those from the new Red Bull Ford Powertrains Formula 1 project.
At Ford Racing’s season launch, at which the 2026 livery of the Ford-powered Red Bull and Racing Bulls F1 cars was revealed, Ford also confirmed three drivers who will compete for the team in the WEC next year: Sebastian Priaulx, Mike Rockenfeller and Logan Sargeant.
Brit Priaulx and German Rockenfeller, who won Le Mans in 2010 with Audi, will move up from racing a Mustang GT3 in the US-based IMSA Sportscar Championship last year, while American Sargeant previously drove in F1 for Williams.
Priaulx and Rockenfeller will compete in a Ford-run Oreca LMP2 prototype in the European Le Mans Series this year. Sayers said this will allow the squad to take “the building blocks of this programme and stress-test them under the most demanding conditions on the planet”.
