Cars - Ford GT

	Cars - Ford GT

|} The Ford GT began as a concept car designed in anticipation of Ford's centennial year and as part of its drive to showcase and revive its "heritage" names such as Mustang and Thunderbird. Camillo Pardo the head of Ford's "Living Legends" studio is credited as the chief designer of the GT and worked under the guidance of Jay Mays. The designers drew inspiration from Ford's classic GT40 race cars of the 1960s and the GT is sometimes mistaken for its 1960s counterpart.

Positive response on the auto show circuit in 2002 helped persuade the company to produce the car in limited quantities, and the first production versions appeared in 2003. It is a very high-performance, two-seater vehicle with a strong styling resemblance to its racing ancestor and performance to match. The powerplant is a mid-mounted supercharged 5.4 liter V8, producing 550 horsepower (410 kW) and 500 foot-pounds (678 Nm) of torque. Top speed is over 200 mph (322 km/h).

Production and sales

Production startup began in spring 2004, with a projected total volume of 4500 cars. The first customers took delivery in September 2004. The GT is built and painted by Saleen in a small, 180,000 ft² (17,000 m²) factory in Troy, Michigan. Installation of the engine, transmission, and interior is handled by Ford's Wixom, Michigan plant.

Of the 4,500 GTs produced, only 101 will be exported to Europe, starting in late 2005, and 200 are destined for Canada. With production ending, it is unlikely that the full 4500 will be produced. Approximately 2100 were made in 2005, and a similar number is expected for the 2006 model.

As with many highly desirable new vehicles, when the Ford GT was first released demand outpaced supply, and the cars initially sold for premium prices, with the first selling for over $500,000 to a retired Microsoft executive at a charity auction and other early cars selling for up to $100,000 or more over the suggested retail price ($140,000 - $157,000 depending on options). Independent sources then began gathering and analysing public information on production, sales, and selling prices, and posted that information as a resource for buyers and sellers. By June 2005 prices had dropped to $10,000 to $20,000 over MSRP, and in August 2005 several new GTs had sold on eBay for MSRP. Recognizing the ongoing demand for the car, Ford raised the base sticker by $10,000 to $149,995 in late 2005.

The production run of the GT will end with the 2006 model year in September, and the Wixom Assembly plant, where the GT is assembled, is scheduled for closing in 2007 .

Problems

Early production Ford GT experienced a few minor problems (including glitches with the electrical and climate control systems, leaking power steering and engine coolant hoses, and a steering column rattle on some cars), and two bigger problems.

In December of 2004, Ford recalled all Ford GTs that had been built up to that point (448 units were built, but only 283 had been shipped to dealers, and only 106 had been delivered to retail customers) because of concerns regarding the strength of the suspension control arms. They had been "squash cast" for added strength, a new process also used by Porsche and Alfa Romeo. But after Ford discovered a crack in one of the high-mileage development cars, the company decided to replace the parts on all the production cars. Ford is not the only manufacturer of exotic cars to have such problems, for example, a similar problem was found on the Ferrari F40.

There was also a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) to inspect the engine on early cars built in 2004 for an oil leak at the main seal. The finish of some crankshafts was flawed, causing an oil leak. Ford dealers stopped the leak with a new main seal and a "Speedi-Sleeve" around the crankshaft, a device commonly used to repair worn engines in older cars. Some journalists felt that this was an improper fix for an expensive supercar and criticized Ford for not either replacing the defective crankshaft or replacing the entire engine.

There are a few other TSBs for the car. TSBs are Technical Service Bulletins that help eliminate problems that some cars may have. The Ford GT TSBs show that some cars may need hose clamps adjusted or replaced, and a few other tiny problems. They are also issued to inform repair shops how to repair paint damaged by acid rain, etc.

Trivia

Gran Turismo 4 uses a GT as its display car for the game. A heavily modified racing version appears both on the cover, and the FMV Intro.
An obvious clone of the GT appears in GTA: San Andreas, under the name "Bullet".
Jeremy Clarkson was one of the first 28 GT owners in the UK. However, as documented on Top Gear, his GT was delivered late, and ongoing problems with its anti-theft alarm led him to return it to Ford in June 2005. However, he subsequently bought the car back. When reviewing the GT, Clarkson compared it to the Ford GT40
: he barely fit into the GT, while a portion of his head laid outside of the GT40 when the doors closed.
*The car was then involved in the Season 7 episode of Top Gear where it (plus a Pagani Zonda
and a Ferrari F430
) caused a major traffic jam in Paris as it tried to get out of a parking garage but ended up barely scraping the pavement due to height issues. In this episode, Clarkson said he liked the Ford GT so much he bought his twice.
*Also in the last episode of Season 7, the Top Gear Awards awarded it the "Gas Guzzler" award, beating out the Range Rover (8MPG), the Bugatti Veyron (4MPG), and the Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire (60 Million gallons and never moved an inch).
Jon Shirley, a retired executive from Microsoft, purchased the first publicly available Ford GT (chassis number 11, white with black stripes) in 2003 for $557,500 in a charity auction hosted by Jay Leno.
Jay Leno purchased the second publicly available Ford GT (chassis number 12, red with white stripes) for exactly list price.
The first nine GT's were reserved for internal use and appear to be owned by the Ford family. Rumor has it that one of those nine has been sold to a local dealer and subsequently sold to a private party.
A Ford GT will participate in the GT300 class of the Super GT (JGTC) in 2006.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ford GT ]

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Cars - Ford GT

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