Wreckage of a Ford GT40 that crashed in Tennessee - Image courtesy WCYB

Wreckage of a Ford GT40 that crashed in Tennessee - Image courtesy WCYB

It turns out that the Ford GT40 that met its demise over the weekend when its driver lost control on a highway in Tennessee in the rain isn't the real deal but a replica made to look like an original 1966 model.   

The owner of the car, a resident of North Carolina, is said to have been traveling at roughly 45-50 mph when he lost traction and ran off the road and into a barrier.

He managed to escape without any serious injury, though as this image of the wreckage shows the car itself wasn’t so lucky.

Most of its fiberglass body was destroyed up front, though the structure and drivetrain are said to have remained intact. The particular engine setup in this replica GT40 is a 7.0-liter Ford V-8 producing close to 550 horsepower.

Three other drivers also ended up crashing nearby when they tried to slow down to avoid the initial crash in the wet conditions.

The GT40 is a car that needs no introduction here at Motor Authority. Conceived with one main goal in mind, to take on Ferrari and beat them on the race tracks of Europe, the GT40 was phenomenally successful, winning at Le Mans for four successive years and racking up an impressive string of victories on both sides of the Atlantic.

While originals can easily fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, on the very rare occasion that they actually come up for sale, the fact that Tennessee Highway Patrol officers told WCYB that the car damaged over the weekend is valued at only around $150,000 pretty much confirmed that it was in fact a replica.