22 October 2002: Ford has had to change the name of the GT40 sports saloon it plans to launch in 2004, commemorating the famous racing car of the same name with which it dominated the Le Mans 24 hours and similar events worldwide during the 60s.

It now will be called simply the Ford GT, because at the time of the original car the company didn’t get around to registering the name, and now the trademark is owned by Safir GT40 Spares Ltd of Cincinnati, which bought the GT40 name in 1999. The company sells replacement parts for the 160 GT40s built from 1964 to 1969.

It seems Ford couldn’t stomach a reputed $40 million demand from Safir for the rights to the name.

Ford said it would build three copies of the sports car in late 2003 to commemorate the automaker's 1-2-3 finish at the 1966 24 Hours of LeMans as part of Ford's 100th anniversary celebration.

The carmaker said it would build about 1,000 GTs annually starting in 2004, at a price of "substantially less" than $150,000.