Ford Readies GT Announcement for America's Birthday
Ford is planning on sharing some big, GT-related news for America’s birthday. On Friday, the company said that it would be making “a special Ford GT supercar announcement” during a dedicated press conference at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 4th.
While that’s the correct date, it’s taking place in the wrong country. But we assume Ford has good reason for that. We’re betting this is some performance-plus variant of the model aimed at achieving enviable lap times. As the Goodwood hill climb is all about the beating a stopwatch, perhaps Ford intends on showing the world what its new car can do.
However, that’s only a guess based entirely on the teaser image’s oversized wing and prominent roof scoop — two items the standard GT lacks. The alternative scenario is that this is a new race car for some, yet unknown, series Ford intends to enter.
Director of Ford Performance Hermann Salenbauch and Multimatic Chief Technical Officer Larry Holt will be the ones to make the July 4th proclamation. The “ultra-high-performance” GT announcement is said to take place at Ford’s stand in the Drift Paddock at 4:45 AM (EDT).
[Image: Ford Motor Co.]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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" new race car for some, yet unknown, series Ford intends to enter " ? Pretty much everyone in sports car racing knows its for the upcoming World Endurance Championship "Hypercar" class, where the future rules were recently finalized.
Hypercar?
For a quick and basic overview of the new Hypercar class, see here: https://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/hypercar-regulations-finalised-2020-21/4473991/ A Hypercar is of course better than a Supercar, but by definition not as good as an Ultracar ;-)
I predict central seating and more turbo whack. BLAMMO! - new car.