If you’re a new Ford GT fan you already know the company has been making a “heritage” edition of the Ford GT every year since it was introduced. The first year new Ford GT Heritage model paid homage to Bruce McLaren’s GT40 win at Le Man in 1966. I reported on the debut of this black-and-silver new Ford GT 2 years ago during Monterey Car Week.
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The Ford GT’s excellent design makes it look good from pretty much any angle. But my favorite angle is the overhead look you can only get from an elevated position. That’s not an easy position to get to unless you have a ladder, but I drove my Ford GT to Monterey Car Week this year, and on the drive up we stayed at a hotel with a balcony.
Fifty years after winning Le Mans in a 1-2-3 sweep, Ford Motor Company returned to the most famous race in the world. This 24-hour test of man and machine, with a 90-plus-year history, remains the pinnacle of endurance racing. Winning the 24 hours of Le Mans is a claim every automaker wants to make — but only 14 can. Winning Le Mans four or more times, which Ford did from 1966 to 1969, has only been accomplished by 6 automakers. So when Ford returned to Le Mans with the new Ford GT in 2016, it was a big deal.
I was fortunate enough to attend the race for the first time that year. It had been on my bucket list forever, and I figured this was the year to make it happen. Happily, the Ford GT Forum felt the same way and arranged a group travel package for owners. By working directly with the automaker the Ford GT Forum was able to secure space in Ford’s VIP suite, which overlooks the front straight at Le Mans.
In 2005 the Ford GT was a brand new mid-engine sports car from America. That same year the lifecycle of an aging mid-engine sports car from Japan, the Acura NSX, was coming to an end. The brief crossover of these two cars provided an intriguing glimpse in sports car evolution.
One of the first things I noticed about the GT and NSX is how low the Ford sits, even by first-generation Acura NSX standards. The NSX is not a “big” car by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, its tidy dimensions and lightweight aluminum structure were considered cutting edge technology when it debuted in 1991. But when sitting next to the Ford GT the Acura NSX doesn’t look as low-slung as the GT, and careful analysis confirmed it is indeed slightly taller than Ford’s 2005 supercar.
I first saw the new Ford GT at the Detroit Auto Show, when it made its world debut at the Ford press conference in Cobo Arena. At the time I didn’t know how many new Ford GTs would be made, how much they would cost, or if I could ever get one. Of the last 4 years I’ve learned the answer to the first two questions, and last week I definitively answered the final question.
My 2019 Ford GT Carbon Series arrived on a Reliable truck after hauling it all the way from Multimatic in Markham, Ontario (just outside Toronto). It was a rainy week in Southern California, and the day it arrived the rain fell from sunrise to sunset…except for the 2 hours surrounding my new Ford GT’s drop off. I appreciated not having to run between the detail shop where it was delivered and GT’s cabin. Instead I was able to capture the event on video as you can see below.