Ford’s LMDh prototype won’t look like a Mustang, says CEO

Ford has revealed that its upcoming LMDh prototype for the 2027 World Endurance Championship will bear no resemblance to the iconic Mustang.

Ford is ramping up preparations for its first top-class programme in the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 1982, having announced plans to build a car to the LMDh platform in January.

Both LMDh and LMH rules allow manufacturers to incorporate styling elements from their road cars to give their prototypes a distinct visual identity.

BMW, for instance, has adopted its signature ‘kidney grille’ design on the M Hybrid V8, while Alpine has also incorporated ‘A’ shaped tail lamps on its A424 LMDh car.

The Mustang remains a key part of Ford’s heritage and currently underpins its factory efforts in both the NASCAR Cup Series and Australia’s Supercars championship.

However, Ford CEO Jim Farley has revealed that the as-unnamed racer will not look anything like its iconic muscle car, emphasising that the American brand has no interest in what he described as “fake marketing.”

“We want a car that's going to win,” Farley told reporters including Crash.net. “I don't care if it looks like a spaceship. It shouldn't.

“We are not going to do what other brands do and try to morph some kind of Ford thing on top of a race car.

“In fact, race cars designed by them are beautiful in their own function.

“We don't have that belief [about using road car elements] at all. In fact, that's the first thing we said to [Oreca boss] Hughes de Chaunac, ‘please do not make any compromise to the vehicle.’

“We want to have the best chance to win Le Mans and we are not going to do some fake marketing thing.”

For its upcoming WEC programme, Ford has partnered with French constructor Oreca, which already supplies the LMDh chassis used by Acura, Alpine and Genesis.

Explaining its decision to work with Oreca, Farley said: “We're not going to win Le Mans unless we have the best technical support and best technical people, so that's necessary.

“Sufficiency comes from all the other things that are immeasurable - relationships, dedication, what happens when we don't do well. What happens when we make a technical bet that isn't right? Will we fix it quickly?

“There's a lot of other things than just scientific technique, technical things. All of that is something that they have shown for many years, a kind of flexibility and spirit of winning and commitment.”

Multimatic has a long-standing relationship with Ford and helped develop the new Mustang GT3, which competes in both the IMSA SportsCar Championship and the LMGT3 class of WEC, among other series.

Multimatic also serves as Ford’s factory team in the GTD Pro division of IMSA, where it runs a pair of Mustang GT3s.

Asked if it was a difficult decision to choose Oreca over Multimatic, whose LMP2 car serves as the basis for the Porsche 963, Farley only said: “We made the best decision for the company.”

The road-going Ford Mustang is famous for its V8 engine, which is capable of churning out 480bhp. The GT3 variant of the car is powered by a 5.4-litre naturally-aspirated Ford Coyote-based V8, developed jointly by Ford Performance and M-Sport.

However, Farley wouldn’t be drawn on what power unit Ford would employ in its new prototype racer.

“That's a great question,” he said. “I'm not going to say what the powertrain is going to be other than, you know, we're an American company.”