Photo: Ford
If the 2017 Ford GT were a mystery novel instead of a supercar, it would probably be more intriguing than The Hound of The Baskervilles. Yeah, I know, I'll probably be seen as the number one GT nitpicker on the Internet after this one, but it goes with the territory.
Ford surprised its fans twice in a single day during the last week of January, albeit it wasn't directly in charge of both bombshells. Unfortunately, both surprises were kind of like a movie with an excellent beginning and an excruciatingly bad ending. Well, not exactly like that, but close.
The first piece of Ford news that day exclusively concerned the long-awaited 2017 Ford GT. The second one was how the 2017 Mustang pre-facelift got only two stars at Euro NCAP, but that is another story for another day. Two years after the Blue Oval dropped an enormous amount of jaws at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show by unveiling a gorgeous Ford GT prototype, over six months after beating Ferrari once more at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and a few weeks after the first production models finally left the assembly line, Ford finally gave us most of the supercar's specification numbers.
My problem with that, and I'm probably not the only one being slightly disappointed, is that these figures are probably too little and too late. Yeah, I know, we are now in an era where a 647 horsepower mid-engine supercar that starts at close to half a million dollars is a bit of the garden variety.
We've been spoiled in the last decade or so with limited production supercars that have 600+ horsepower, and some carmakers have also invented a new breed of exotics, called hypercars and even megacars, with horsepower numbers ranging in the four-digits. That could be a reason for considering the 2017 Ford GT's specs a bit mediocre, but there could also be others.
For example, Ford let it slip that its crème de la crème, the fastest road car it has ever produced, was benchmarked against the Ferrari 488 GTB and the McLaren 675LT. The good news is that it manages to beat both of it “arch enemies” on some Canadian racing circuit that not that many people have heard about.
Well, I'm glad that the Blue Oval is so infatuated with beating Ferraris on the track again and again, but shouldn't the GT be a bit more special that? Both the 488 GTB and the 675LT are on their way out, production-wise, not to mention that neither is the fastest Ferrari or fastest McLaren in history. On top of its, both are ironically a lot less expensive than the Ford.
This is only one part of my squabble with the 2017 Ford GT, though. The other one revolves around how Ford might have pulled a practical joke with just about everyone when it come to its latest supercar.
Let's go back a few months ago, right after its racing version won the LM GTE Pro category at the 24H of Le Mans, exactly 50 years on from the GT40's legendary 1-2-3 victory in 1966. So it happens that for a carmaker to participate in the GTE class, the said racing car must be based on a production of which at least 100 examples have been built (25 for a “small manufacturer,” 300 for a carbon chassis).
Well, guess what, apart from a press release at the end of December 2016, in which it only announced that the 2017 Ford GT had started production, the Blue Oval hasn't made any proof of how many road-going GTs it built last year.
To me, that kind of transforms the car from an unattainable piece of high tech machinery up on a pedestal into something else. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore its looks, and I couldn't be more pleased with its racing version kicking Italian behinds on its first outing at Le Mans. I also can't help but feel a little disappointment in how it all turned out.
Last, but certainly not least, there were some who raised an eyebrow at how fast the cars were during the race compared to what the qualifications were announcing. I'm not trying to start a fire here, but is it possible that the entire Ford GT program was maybe built entirely for marketing reasons, without any bit of “soul” being involved.
To me it sounds more and more like a business decision, winning Le Mans at the 50th anniversary just so Ford can charge hypercar money on what is essentially a racing car for the road. I'm making it sound like that is a bad thing because it probably is.
The GTE Pro version wasn't built based on the production car, but it was the other way around. This would also explain why the official EPA numbers on the “efficient” 2017 Ford GT with a twin-turbocharged, 3.5-liter V6 are worse than on the 13-year old GT, which was powered by a supercharged, 5.4-liter V8. To me, Ford did a bad thing, and it should feel bad, but it's likely that I'm part of a minority in saying this.
The first piece of Ford news that day exclusively concerned the long-awaited 2017 Ford GT. The second one was how the 2017 Mustang pre-facelift got only two stars at Euro NCAP, but that is another story for another day. Two years after the Blue Oval dropped an enormous amount of jaws at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show by unveiling a gorgeous Ford GT prototype, over six months after beating Ferrari once more at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and a few weeks after the first production models finally left the assembly line, Ford finally gave us most of the supercar's specification numbers.
My problem with that, and I'm probably not the only one being slightly disappointed, is that these figures are probably too little and too late. Yeah, I know, we are now in an era where a 647 horsepower mid-engine supercar that starts at close to half a million dollars is a bit of the garden variety.
We've been spoiled in the last decade or so with limited production supercars that have 600+ horsepower, and some carmakers have also invented a new breed of exotics, called hypercars and even megacars, with horsepower numbers ranging in the four-digits. That could be a reason for considering the 2017 Ford GT's specs a bit mediocre, but there could also be others.
For example, Ford let it slip that its crème de la crème, the fastest road car it has ever produced, was benchmarked against the Ferrari 488 GTB and the McLaren 675LT. The good news is that it manages to beat both of it “arch enemies” on some Canadian racing circuit that not that many people have heard about.
Well, I'm glad that the Blue Oval is so infatuated with beating Ferraris on the track again and again, but shouldn't the GT be a bit more special that? Both the 488 GTB and the 675LT are on their way out, production-wise, not to mention that neither is the fastest Ferrari or fastest McLaren in history. On top of its, both are ironically a lot less expensive than the Ford.
This is only one part of my squabble with the 2017 Ford GT, though. The other one revolves around how Ford might have pulled a practical joke with just about everyone when it come to its latest supercar.
Let's go back a few months ago, right after its racing version won the LM GTE Pro category at the 24H of Le Mans, exactly 50 years on from the GT40's legendary 1-2-3 victory in 1966. So it happens that for a carmaker to participate in the GTE class, the said racing car must be based on a production of which at least 100 examples have been built (25 for a “small manufacturer,” 300 for a carbon chassis).
Well, guess what, apart from a press release at the end of December 2016, in which it only announced that the 2017 Ford GT had started production, the Blue Oval hasn't made any proof of how many road-going GTs it built last year.
To me, that kind of transforms the car from an unattainable piece of high tech machinery up on a pedestal into something else. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore its looks, and I couldn't be more pleased with its racing version kicking Italian behinds on its first outing at Le Mans. I also can't help but feel a little disappointment in how it all turned out.
Last, but certainly not least, there were some who raised an eyebrow at how fast the cars were during the race compared to what the qualifications were announcing. I'm not trying to start a fire here, but is it possible that the entire Ford GT program was maybe built entirely for marketing reasons, without any bit of “soul” being involved.
To me it sounds more and more like a business decision, winning Le Mans at the 50th anniversary just so Ford can charge hypercar money on what is essentially a racing car for the road. I'm making it sound like that is a bad thing because it probably is.
The GTE Pro version wasn't built based on the production car, but it was the other way around. This would also explain why the official EPA numbers on the “efficient” 2017 Ford GT with a twin-turbocharged, 3.5-liter V6 are worse than on the 13-year old GT, which was powered by a supercharged, 5.4-liter V8. To me, Ford did a bad thing, and it should feel bad, but it's likely that I'm part of a minority in saying this.
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