Kar-Kraft: Race Cars, Prototypes and Muscle Cars of Ford’s Special Vehicle Activity Program
By Charlie Henry
The basic story is a familiar one: Ford, its effort to buy Ferrari rebuffed, set about to beat the Italian carmaker at its own game—in those days that meant Le Mans. The Ford Motor Company did not have a racing division per se, so it sought an independent contractor to facilitate the development of the special vehicles it needed to go racing. After initially working with England’s Lola Cars, Ford brought the program back home to the USA where a local firm in the Motor City, Kar-Kraft, was enlisted to build the racecars.
Kar-Kraft had sprung from the original Mustang I concept car program, which showed company brass what could be achieved by working outside the lines, unfettered by the standard restraints of corporate bureaucracy. Author Henry is a former Kar-Kraft employee who takes readers inside the operation, introducing all the main players and illuminating how things worked.
Kar-Kraft’s life was short, ending inexplicably one “cold day” late in 1970 when the plug was pulled, but before that, Kar-Kraft had produced an incredible string of diverse racecars that set standards and wrote history. Henry tells the story through his own recollections and those of his co-workers, illustrating everything with exceptional period photography, as well as many graphs, charts and letters. It’s an engrossing story.
Available for US$39.95 from enthusiast bookstores or direct from publisher CarTech at www.cartechbooks.com/Kar-Kraft
