Whenever someone sticks the letters “G” and “T” at the end of a car’s name, enthusiasts start to salivate; but why do those two letters induce such a Pavlovian reaction when set beside the word “Ford”?
Just look at its history. The Ford GT‘s parent, the GT40, was the culmination of Henry Ford II’s dream of beating Ferrari at the 24-hr endurance race at LeMans so he got a few people, including Carroll Shelby, to design a world beater with Detroit know-how. The GT40 rose to the challenge, snatching the first LeMans victory by a US manufacturer in 1966 and then proceeded to win three more consecutive races at LeMans, its streak ending in 1969. So as the 2002 successor to the GT40, the road-ready Ford GT was just the thing to trigger sports car enthusiasts’ salivary glands.
It’s important to understand that Ford GT enthusiasts comprise two different categories: the Collector and the Racer. Collectors love the GT because it’s the muscliest of muscle cars with its all-aluminum, 550 hp, supercharged, American-made V8 engine. The fact that it blends classic European sports car lines with bold American looks, evidenced by the Shelby-esqe racing stripes, makes it doubly appealing. The Racer loves the Ford GT because, as more than one GT driver puts it, racing this car fulfills a fantasy that was generated somewhere back in the 1960s when the Ford racing team first took that checkered flag at LeMans.
But let’s not overlook the fact that it’s one of the few—if not the only—exotic sports cars to truly hold its value, as CNN “Money” reports. Originally released with a MSRP of $150k, the Ford GT has risen in value, sometimes almost as much as three times its original MSRP, but it has never gone below that original sticker price. CNN “”Money”” cites three reasons for this: one, the 4,000 Ford GT cars made had a low starting price to begin with; two, other supercars just have not increased in value; three, other exotic super cars, like Ferrari and McLaren, are far more expensive and produced in smaller batches and so don’t figure into the equation.
Article by: P.A. Remmell
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