this was a homage to Ford’s very famous and successful GT40, except Ford didn’t have the naming rights to the GT40 name, so the peeps at Ford called it the GT instead (not that calling it the GT44 would have sounded great anyways)
this was also made to celebrate the centennial of Ford, and the headlights are meant to spell out 100 as a result, neat design choice
success in motorsport was varied, with some good success and some not so good failures