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