Ford Motor Company has unveiled the edgy GT supercar the
automaker plans to build next year.
The previous Ford GT
was part developed in the UK by the since doomed Mayflower Corporation in
Coventry, but this latest vehicle comes from a small team at the product
development centre in Dearborn.
Mayflower executives
took great pride it the role the company’s engineers played in the carbon
fibre-based Ford GT, but the move did nothing to save the business from what
amounted in the end to poor management of the British company.
Ford will make a limited number of GTs for
sale in the second half of 2016. It will be a global car but the first sales
will be in the US, according to Ford executive chairman Bill Ford.
The GT is among a trio of performance
vehicles Ford has just revealed, including the next-generation 2017 F-150
Raptor high-performance, off-road pickup with a 3.5-litre EcoBoost engine.
The third is the Shelby GT350R Mustang: a
stripped down, track-ready and street legal version of the GT350 that Ford
showed in November at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
However, Ford claims it would not have
developed these vehicles is gasoline prices had not been so low. But we can all
take that with a huge pinch of salt, as the Ford GT arrives on the 50th
anniversary of the car winning Le man 24-hour race in France.
The three are among the more than 12 new
Ford performance vehicles coming by 2020 as the automaker has reorganized its
regional performance divisions into a single global unit. Ford wants to take
advantage of a 70 per cent increase in performance vehicle sales in the US and
a 14 per cent increase in Europe.
However, Ford claims it would not have
developed these vehicles is gasoline prices had not been so low. But we can all
take that with a huge pinch of salt, as the Ford GT arrives on the 50th
anniversary of the car winning Le Mans 24-hour race in France.
The new GT will feature a 3.5-litre twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V6 engine generating more than 600bhp. The last GT
had a 550bhp supercharged 5.4-litre V8. A conventional 3.5-litre V6 develops
around 365bhp.
The GT’s doors open in a scissor motion but
are not full gullwing doors.
The GT, which Ford reckons will compete
against the Lamborghini Aventador, McLaren 650S and the Ferrari 458 Speciale (all of which may well be wishful thinking on the part of Ford),
will be assembled in a "purpose-built" facility.
The GT marks the return of the rear-drive
mid-engine super car which was last sold in the 2006 model year. It returns for
2016, the 50th anniversary of the first of the GT40's four consecutive wins at
the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
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