What an incredible car!!! When Ford announced that they were going to stop making the Ford GT, I decided that I needed to have one. And if you’re going to have one, the only color combination should be the Heritage colors, going back to the 1960’s Lemans history.
I’m used to driving some nice cars, and a lot of them draw a lot of looks and stares. You get used to it, and after a while don’t even notice. Not true with this car – I always felt self-conscious driving it. It’s like a big advertisement saying “look at me in my race car”.
Once I started driving it, I realized just how sophisticated this car was. With 550 HP, it wasn’t the most powerful car I had, but it was one of the best. I’ve always said that this car demonstrates the smooth application of power better than any car I’ve had. I called it an “arm stretcher”. When you get into the accelerator, you get pushed back in the seat and it stretches your arms. It also had the smoothest manual transmission I’ve ever felt. The gear shift felt like butter, and was effortless to shift.
The story of how I bought it is funny. When I started looking, I immediately found one in Scottsdale, AZ not far from my house. At the time, they wanted $10,000 over sticker price. I started looking on the internet, and found one that was listed for $5,000 below sticker. I had never seen one below sticker, so I called the dealer. I asked him why his was under sticker and he explained that he was a small car dealer in North Dakota and had ordered the car a couple years earlier, sure that he would never get one. He had recently been notified that the car was scheduled to be built about 6 weeks later, and he said that he needed to get it sold quickly. He pointed out that there really wasn’t anybody in North Dakota to buy the car, and even if there was, there was no place to drive it.
Since all Ford GT’s were delivered by Reliable Transport, I was able to get the car diverted from North Dakota straight to Scottsdale, AZ. When I called and told the dealer, he was disappointed. He had hoped to at least get to see the car. He made me promise that when I got the car, I would send him a picture of me with the car. I did, and he called back to let me know that I had made the front page of the local newspaper!
