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The New Ford GT Was Secretly Developed in a Basement

Up until the 2015 Detroit Auto Show, nobody knew Ford will unveil something as sick as the new GT replacement. The company said their line-up will get a lot better in the near future, but who would have thought about a supercar with all those new Mustangs in the chamber?
New Ford GT 1 photo
Photo: Ford
Well, that was the only clue company afforded to giveaway because the Ford GT was developed in utmost secrecy and only a few employees knew about the project’s existence somewhere underground. Sounds a bit like a story from Area 51, doesn’t it?

Usually, when such an important project gets started, an automakers has to tease it some way or another in order to see the public’s reactions. But, according to AN’s report, Ford decided it can’t afford the bureaucracy and the media chaos in order to finish the new GT fast enough to be unveiled at the Detroit Show.

"Usually, we like to encourage, especially on important programs, wide input from around the world," Ford global design chief Moray Callum said. "But on this one, we sort of realized both in terms of time and the element of keeping it quiet that we probably had to change the process here, so we picked a small group of designers."

Working off hours in total secrecy

So, the company assigned the Phoenix project (yeah, that was the new Ford GT’s codename) to a small group of designers and engineers, telling them to work on it during night time inside Ford’s Product Development Center’s basement and keep their mouth shut about it.

They didn’t even had standard access cards to access the area and relied on less noticeable standard metal keys. They had to make excuses back home for the time they were missing and had to wait for the weekends to take the project out in the facility’s yard to see it in sunlight.

Did it work? Ford cut some corners with the development stages and put all its money on shocking the people with the new model to attract interest. And yes, it worked! The new Ford GT got unveiled in time to celebrate the historic 1966 GT40’s win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, when Henry Ford II fulfilled his promise do defeat Ferrari.

Even better, this whole unexpected event managed to raise enough interest, most people forgot about Honda’s new NSX unveil later that day.
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