Getting your hands on a Ford GT is, any way you spin it, a tough task. Not only will you obviously have to have enough money and intent to purchase the supercar, you’d have be chosen by Ford for the privilege of being a lucky owner.
Mind you, being shortlisted does not mean that the ordeal is over. Further background checks and justification measures are needed for a prospective owner to be selected as one of the final 500 recipients.
That number of owners corresponds directly with how many next-generation GTs Ford had planned to build, with 250 cars emerging from the factory each year. Now, though, - through what we suspect to be a combination of goodwill, overwhelming customer demand, and a loosening of how many cars they could afford to make without losing its exclusivity - Ford will be extending that to four years.
That should effectively double the number of Ford GTs created to 1000 units. These should go to the applicants who were just shy of being selected for the first batch of 500 cars as well as new potential customers who missed their chance to put in a bid to own the next great Ford supercar.
The Ford GT made its debut in concept form in 2015 at the launch of the Forza Motorsport 6 video game for Xbox One, showing us new avenues about what we can expect from the pinnacle of sports car design.
The transition to fully approved production car did not change the stunning blue GT, however, and slowly details were revealed about how its stunning exterior belied the technology and underlying functionality as well as the performance that would be enabled by it.
Powered by a twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre V6 EcoBoost engine generating over 450kW, the car’s unique construction materials and methods prompted Ford to say that it will exhibit one of the best power-to-weight ratios of any production car. The GT’s seven-speed dual-clutch transmission sends power to the rear-wheels which rest on an advanced push-rod suspension aluminium sub-frame that endows the car with truly race-level handling credentials.
“While we can’t build enough Ford GTs for everyone who has applied, we are going to produce additional vehicles in an effort to satisfy more of our most loyal Ford ambassadors,” says Dave Pericak, global director, Ford Performance. “We want to keep Ford GT exclusive, but at the same time we know how vital this customer is to our brand.”
Ford’s executive vice president of product development and chief technical officer, Raj Nair, said: “Ford GT has racing in its blood. The road car and race car will live on, side-by-side, for the next four years – providing ample opportunity to test and prove innovative new technologies both on and off the track.” For its European racing debut, the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans race, the GT finished 1st in the GTE Pro Class.
For more on Ford vehicles, including pricing and specifications, check out our Showroom.
