The Ford GT40’s fuel tank was deliberately positioned in the chassis tunnel directly beneath the driver’s seat, forcing the driver to sit on top of approximately 40 gallons of gasoline during racing—a packaging necessity that transformed crash survival into pure chance, since any structural failure in that specific area would ignite the fuel directly around the driver rather than in a remote location, making the GT40’s racing dominance come at a human cost that Ford engineers simply accepted as unavoidable.
Car Fact #125 — October 19, 2026
