Insight: Inside the Design of Ford's 'Champion's Spirit' Mustang GT3 Livery

A detailed look at the conception of part art car, part heritage livery celebrating Mustang's 60th anniversary...

Ford Performance's 'Champion's Spirit' livery for its factory Mustang GT3s has been described by its designer as part art car, part heritage design which has led to an "unexpected aspect" of celebrating Mustang's 60th anniversary.

Unveiled on Wednesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway during a special fan and owner event commemorating the pony car's birthday, the livery will adorn the two Ford Multimatic Motorsports-run Mustang GT3s in the upcoming IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship rounds at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Detroit.

The unique idea of taking livery cues from numerous iconic Mustang race cars, dating back to car's debut in 1964, and combining them into a single design came from Ford Performance global sports car marketing manager Scott Bartlett, who had been working since late last year on a concept to celebrate Mustang's 60th anniversary on the track.

"For me, I just love special liveries," Bartlett told Sportscar365. "At Ford, we've done historic liveries before and other OEMs have done historic liveries before. I wanted to do something different. I feel a historic livery is something that's very easy to do now; I didn't want to replicate stuff that's been done in the past.

"The idea was, 'We've got all of these great historic liveries, how can you pick just one?' Then I thought, 'Why not just find a way to integrate multiple liveries in a different way.'"

Ford Performance design manager Anthony Colard, who created the factory and customer base liveries for the Mustang GT3, then went to work to find a creative way to showcase multiple generations of Mustang race cars in a single livery.

"Initially the idea was, 'Let's take the livery we have on the IMSA cars and just change the colors, bring in some of the colors from all these race cars that we've had in the past that have been successful," Colard told Sportscar365. "We looked at that. It looked really good and everything but it was a little bit expected in a way.

"At one point I was looking at the 3D model of the car on my computer and was thinking it would be cool if it was catching this [livery] here and catching that [livery] there. I just started doodling some ideas directly on the screen as if it was painted directly on the car.

"That's where I came up with the idea of, 'What if we're taking the Mustang GT3 and we have all the spirit of race cars from the past and all of father, grandfather, great-grandfather generations before of Mustangs that are living inside our GT3.' 

"They're in that DNA because when we design these cars, we always look at what's been done before and the heritage that comes with it.

“I was looking at this and was like, 'When people buy a Mustang, it's like a barn[yard] find. You start peeling off the paint and you see all of the layers from the previous generations, the previous owners, the previous paint jobs.' That came to me as what if that paintwork was the six previous generations of Mustang race cars that live inside the body of our seventh-generation Mustang GT3?

"I started from there and that's why on the livery we've integrated all the colors from eight different Mustang race cars that have been very key to the heritage of the car and for Ford Motor Company as a whole.

“We've treated it as if paint that peels off or is faded away or flaked off and got scratched, damaged or dinged a little bit. That's how I came up with it... and I basically sketched it as if I was taking a paint brush directly to the car and doing an art car on the body itself."

Colard and his team presented the initial sketches to Ford Performance global motorsports director Mark Rushbrook, which was initially met with positive, yet mixed reactions, until Colard was able to explain the full concept.

"Initially it was, 'Oh that's a lot of stuff,'" Colard recalled. "But I said, 'Yeah, but I want people to keep coming back to it, keep looking at it. Every lap when it goes by, if they see it from a different vantage point around the track.

"Every time when the spectators move around the track, they're going to see the car from a different angle and they're going to spot something new on the car. If it's a two-hour and 40-minute race, between the start and the finish, they're certainly going to be discovering stuff on this car.

"When they see it in the pits, they're going to come and look at all of the little details and easter eggs and things like this that we've hidden in the graphics. It's kind of the idea, for somebody that doesn't know the history or doesn't have that information, it will be an art car.

"I think it has that very unexpected aspect to it, which is really cool, because I really don't think people are expecting Ford to do something like this. But at the same time, it has all that background [and history] to it, and we can help share the whole story behind it so that it's not just an art car. It takes all of the Mustang's heritage with it and combines it into the new livery."

For Joey Hand, who will share driving duties of the No. 65 Mustang GT3 with Dirk Mueller in the 'Champion's Spirit' livery, the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours GTE-Pro winner was filled with excitement after finding out the details of the special design.

"I'm excited that we're doing new, cool stuff already with the program," he told Sportscar365. "I see it as people getting engaged with the program. I was doing the photoshoot and one of the [elements] that stands out to me is the Motorcraft car and it had my buddy Scott Pruett's name on it. 

"For me, it's kind of neat carrying around that. I particularly like the orange and black part on the left-front, [based on the] the Boss 302.

"When I saw the renderings, I didn't know what was going on with the black streaks [on the left side] and I got there and I realized they are tire marks, like somebody flat-wheeled you! When you see it in person, the car pops even more than it does in renderings or pictures. It takes on a different look."

Hand added: "As I get older, I think about the history of stuff a lot more. People ask the questions, 'What's going to be important to you?' A lot of times, my answer is my kids, my family seeing the things I've done. Having the [Le Mans-winning] Ford GT in the Henry Ford Museum and things like that.

"This to me is one of those things that could stand out, I'm hoping."

Bartlett, meanwhile, is hoping the livery will get people even more excited about the Mustang GT3 program, which is in its debut season in sport car racing competition.

"With what we're doing on-track is half the battle, it's also off-track and getting people excited about what we're doing," he said.

"Special liveries can make teams. There's plenty of cars out there where fans might not remember which races they won, but they were favorites simply because of how they looked and got the fans excited. I think that's a big component.

"The cars are still new and everyone is still getting up to speed with them, as it's the first year with the car. We're still in a learning phase.

"While we get there and while we build that up on the competition side, I think keeping fans and spectators and Mustang owners engaged and excited about what we're doing is important.

"This can hopefully write another chapter in Mustang's history."

Photos: Marc Urbano/Ford

Insight: Behind the Scenes at Porsche Penske's European HQ

Sportscar365 gets an inside look at Porsche Penske Motorsport’s base of operations in Mannheim, Germany…

If you didn’t know where to look, you’d almost miss it. And you’d be forgiven for that because the location doesn’t exactly stand out. An unassuming industrial estate, undoubtedly like one of thousands all across Germany. Even turning into the street in question, you’d still have no idea. To the left, the logistics hub for a transport company. To the right, gray steel fencing obscuring the view of what sits behind. And then, suddenly, an opening in the fencing. A gate. And on the facade of the building behind it, three words: Porsche Penske Motorsport.

Welcome to the Mannheim headquarters of endurance sports car racing’s newest powerhouse stable. From this location, found roughly halfway between Stuttgart and Frankfurt, Porsche’s FIA World Endurance Championship factory Hypercar operations are run and last week, Sportscar365 got a behind-the-scenes look and tour at the goings-on at the Hypercar class’ most recent race winners.

Walk through the door and you immediately realize that Porsche treats this facility with enormous gravity. The first thing we saw upon entry was the Porsche 919 Evo that set the Nordschleife lap record in the hands of Timo Bernhard in 2018. 

Alongside it, the 919 Hybrid that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber and Nico Hulkenberg in 2015. These two hybrid spaceships were accompanied by a RS Spyder from the American Le Mans Series and a 962C Group C car. In the middle of the foyer sat a 963 show car, decked out on last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans livery.

At first glance, the choice to locate the Porsche Penske headquarters in Mannheim may seem a little odd. Porsche’s motorsport test facility in Weissach is more than one-hundred kilometers (70 miles) away. Its corporate headquarters in Stuttgart is even further up the road. So why here? Why not closer to home?

When Porsche and Penske came together to run its joint WEC-IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship effort with the 963 LMDh car, building a new facility for the European operation proved difficult because of building restrictions in the area. Instead, the decision fell on finding an existing facility that could be appropriately upgraded to suit the new purpose. 

As it turns out, that facility was already sitting right under Porsche and Penske’s nose. The Mannheim headquarters that now houses the WEC operation started out in life as a Porsche dealership until it was sold to Penske Automotive in 2008. It continued to operate in the same fashion for nearly a decade, until the Mannheim Porsche dealership was moved to a new building just a few minutes up the road. 

So when the Porsche LMDh program was born in 2020 and a base of operations needed to be found, a decision was quickly made to convert this facility in what Porsche figures described as a “multi-million dollar project.”

The traces of the building’s old life are still very much present. The welcoming foyer, while it now houses some of the most iconic racing cars in Porsche history, still looks like a place where the latest versions of Porsche road cars once sat. The lineup of cars at reception also rotates through a partnership with the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, with different cars being brought in every few months. 

Up the stairs, the glass offices for leadership figures like managing director Jonathan Diuguid and LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle still look like the sales offices where many deals for 911s were undoubtedly made through the years. Even further upstairs, the area that once housed the used car department has been completely redesigned and now houses engineering offices, an operations room and an in-house gym.

Yes, a gym. It’s just a glimmer into how seriously Porsche and Penske take things when it comes to crew readiness. Because the fitness equipment in that room is not just for drivers, but also for the pit crew.

These staff members are put through a rigorous routine workout and training regiment to prepare them for races. It’s a set schedule: physical training on Tuesday and Thursday, pitstop practice in the mock pit lane downstairs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It’s all par for the course for Porsche Penske’s race preparations and one of the benefits of having the Mannheim facility up and running, as Kuratle points out.

“The pitstop practice for sure is a big one, but I think an even bigger one is to have the complete team, the engineers, the mechanics, everybody involved here and also for the drivers a possibility to come together and be at one place,” Kuratle says.

“At home, also coming back from a race. It’s a space to prepare the cars and also to discuss processes and things like this. 

“These days, home offices are a big thing. People are working in remote areas and I think we last year found the boundaries where it’s very important to have the engineers here, to talk to the mechanics, drivers and to everybody in person and not via a screen. 

“These are good technologies that we are also using in certain places, but it’s very important to have the people present here and grow together as a team. 

“The biggest benefit is to create the team. Imagine, where you work, if you don’t have an office where you go back and you only live out of hotel rooms or something, it’s not the same. That’s basically the same for a racing team as well.”

Meanwhile, down in the workshop, staff were busy preparing the pair of 963 race chassis for their trip to Imola where Porsche will defend its early championship lead in the Hypercar class. It’s often said that to be prepared is half the victory.

If this glimpse behind the scenes gave us any indication, Porsche Penske Motorsport is already halfway there.

Photos: Gruppe C Photography/Porsche

Insight: What's New for Fanatec GT World Challenge America in 2024?

A look at the new drivers, teams and cars that are set to be on the grid over the course of the season...

The 2024 Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season kicks off this weekend at Sonoma Raceway, featuring new machinery, a number of exciting fresh driver pairings as well additional content that’s still to come later in the season.

While the Pro class, which mandates at least one Silver-rated driver in each lineup, features three cars, each lineup and team have notable changes or additions to its roster for the upcoming season.

Racers Edge Motorsports, which stepped into top-class GT3 competition last year with its Acura NSX GT3 EVO22 with Mario Farnbacher and Ashton Harrison, features an all-new driver roster in former open-wheel turned sports car racing ace Zach Veach, alongside up-and-comer Luca Mars.

Perennial Pro-Am squad Wright Motorsports has made the step up, courtesy of Adam Adelson’s strong runs in Fanatec GT competition last year that’s made him a legitimate Silver-rated driver, alongside Elliott Skeer. The duo finished runner-up in the Pro-Am standings last year.

Then there’s ST Racing, which expands into a two-car BMW M4 GT3 effort, with BMW legend Bill Auberlen joining the Canadian team alongside Varun Choksey, also in the Pro class.

ST’s sister BMW, which will continue competing in the stacked Pro-Am ranks, sees team owner Samantha Tan paired with BMW factory driver Neil Verhagen for their first full-time campaign together, which will be one to watch.

Other new content out of the BMW camp comes from Turner Motorsport, which returns to Fanatec GT America competition after largely a season away, and brings Ferrari Challenge race winner Justin Rothberg to GT3 competition alongside BMW works driver and longtime Turner ace Robby Foley.

In terms of new cars, the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo will be making its series debut this weekend with the new Flying Lizard Motorsports effort of Andy Lee and Elias Sabo, who graduates to the top series after a race-winning Pirelli GT4 America campaign.

While it’s the only new car on the grid for Sonoma, out of the five GT3 manufacturers represented, a sixth brand in Chevrolet is set to join Fanatec GT America action later this year with DXDT Racing having announced plans to field up to two of the new Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, including one for Bryan Sellers and Scott Smithson.

Sellers and Smithson, meanwhile, will start their season in Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo machinery, alongside the sister DXDT entry of Jeff Burton and Mercedes-AMG factory driver Philip Ellis.

While Ellis will be making his full-season Fanatec GT America debut, Chouest Povoledo Racing will be too, with its Mercedes-AMG set for Pro-Am honors with the longtime driver pairing of Ross Chouest and Aaron Povoledo that had previously competed with Aston Martin Vantage GT4 machinery.

There’s also another new team to series’ competition in Canadian outfit MMG, which brings a Porsche 911 GT3 R for former IndyCar series ace Alex Tagliani and Jean-Frederic Laberge to the series, which will be another one to watch.

Alongside series’ staples such as CrowdStrike by Riley (Colin Braun, George Kurtz) and GMG Racing, which fields Porsche Carrera Cup race winner Thomas Sargent for a season-long campaign with Kyle Washington, there’s plenty to look forward to in Sonoma.

With new Corvettes on their way, potentially as early as the second or third rounds of the season at Sebring International Raceway or Circuit of The Americas respectively, fellow Detroit rival Ford could also have a presence in the series with at least one Mustang GT3 before years’ end.

And that’s not counting race-by-race entries such as Esses Racing, which will be on the grid at Sonoma, and additional teams understood to be finalizing programs to come online in the races to come.

Ferrari, which was represented by both Triarsi Competizione and Conquest Racing last year, are among the manufacturers that could re-appear later this season. A 296 GT3 is already entered in GT America powered by AWS by AF Corse.

While the grid for Sonoma may be lower than some had expected, the season will undoubtedly continue to produce hard-fought racing, highlighted by the number of newcomers to SRO America’s flagship series.

Photos: ST Racing, Aston Martin, CrowdStrike Racing