Ford GT MKII: Too Much Car for the Road?
Is winning Le Mans not enough for the Ford GT to keep relevance in today’s exotic market?
The Ford GT is a car designed to break automotive barriers. However, how did it come to be? For Ford Motor Company, it had been well over a decade since they had attempted to build anything remotely close to a “supercar”. Nonetheless, today’s modern automotive landscape features an incredible diversification of vehicles from across the spectrum. Currently, there has never been this many options on the market for buying an exotic performance vehicle. The company was in a position to show its strength. Their answer was the Ford GT MKII.
Since the 1960’s when Ford first teamed up with Carol Shelby to build a Le Mans-winning race car, the brand has always been pushing the limit of what was possible. The iconic GT40, which will always be considered one of the most important vehicles of all time, beat the European overlords at their own game. This event in history is being immortalized by a new film, Ford v. Ferrari (check it out if you haven’t). 50 years later, Ford built the GT MKII to win Le Mans again and they did. The brand managed to secure the 2016 LM GTE Pro class victory. The question then remains, why is nobody talking about this car when it does everything right? Let’s tune into Carfection on YouTube to see what this car is really about.
The Ford GT featured in this video is being driven around an M-Sport (Ford’s rally division) test track in the UK. Unfortunately, the UK’s weather is not known to be the best. During testing, rain poured continually the whole time. While this may make for aesthetic 4K camera work, it doesn’t make for pushing a car to its limits. Thus, Carfection host Henry Catchpole, does his best to explain what it’s like to drive around this racecar for the road on a wet track.
If there is anything we know about the Ford GT for certain is that it wins races. Its pedigree on the racetrack speaks for itself. They did, in fact, build the car for that reason. However, did they build the road car just for homologation’s sake or is it truly usable as a “street” car? If Catchpole tells us anything during his drive, the car is always on edge. It’s sharp and accurate when used properly, but one mistake and it gets angry. This is exemplified more so by the wet race track. The GT has a razor-sharp profile and an eye-catching design. The recipe to make any exotic owner happy. However, seldom do we see a MKII on the road.
Supposedly, Ford makes 250 units of the Ford GT MKII on a yearly basis. However, we never seem to see any social media posts or any hype about the car. Is the GT just good for racing and not really a worthwhile road car? Let me know in the comments below.
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