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    Re: The new Ford GT

    RC:

    I don't know, I kind of have a bad feeling about the Ford GT. How can a manufacturer like Ford build a super sportscar basically over night without the experience and tech companies like Ferrari, Porsche and even McLaren were used to develop and use for years? I am a bit skeptical, to say at least.

    I know that Ford can make nice cars but looking at my GT500 for example, I think Ford is dumb. A Mustang GT500 with slightly better quality (interior) and AWD (or at least a 21st century TC) and a modern DSG would have blown out the competition out of the water, so I'm not really a fan of Ford when it comes to sportscars.

    What's so hard? Their race cars are just as good or better than Ferrari, Porsche, and McLaren, so why wouldn't their road cars be? It's really not that hard to make an exotic car. It's not like Ferrari and Porsche create all their own components in secret. Manufacturers are often little more than assemblers. Suppliers provide a huge amount of the engineering and expertise for every car.

    Ford has no less capable engineers than anyone else and they have vastly more money and resources than Ferrari or McLaren. Any talent they might lack can easily just be hired with ease. There is plenty of talent to go around.

    Also, McLaren hadn't made a road car in like 20 years, yet the 12C/650S is way higher performance than the cars from Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini at the time. 12C/650S is from like 2011. What Porsche and Ferraris were around in 2011?


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Everyone can make a good race car if they hire the right people and pump enough money into that project.

    Street car? Different story. Completely different requirements, incl. safety, emissions and whatnot.


    --

    RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet (2015), Porsche Cayenne S Diesel (2017), Audi R8 V10 Plus (2016), Mini JCW (2015)


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Not a different story at all. It's very easy to do.

    Corvette and Viper are regularly comparable, if not sometimes stomping European exotics in performance tests for pennies on the dollar. Why would you think Ford is any different? Imagine what they can do with a $450K budget without even caring about making money. Ferrari budgets to make a profit on a $300K car. Ford budgeted to most likely lose money on a $450K car.

    No car company is significantly ahead or more capable than any other. They simply have difference business models, style, and long-term plans. Vipers have way more downforce and aero grip than any exotic. Why? Because Ferrari owners do not want giant wings and canards on their car. Why doesn't Porsche make the 911 Turbo 700hp? Because they don't want to.

    I'd also point out that Corvette over the years has not only matched Ferrari in performance, but they've also done it more efficiently with better MPG.


    Re: The new Ford GT

    This is a great supercar, As Ford is a mainstream car maker, this fits perfectly into their portfolio and serves as the poster boy for the younger generations.. I am glad that it's not just another N/A V10.. that's boring and probably would sell less well.. people will jump on this for it's advanced technology and ecoboost engine etc.. I think it's a stunning project and I am not as pessimistic about it as others. That white one looks stunning angel


    --

    1986 BMW 325i Cabrio Alpine Weiss/Black Leather - German Spec 
    2006 Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 Black/Black Leather 

    Ex: ''91 BMW 535i, '91 BMW 318i, '89 BMW 525i, '74 Mercedes-Benz 280E, '87 BMW 325is, '86 BMW 325e, '05 Ford Focus ZX4 S, '85.5 Porsche 944

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    My would-be spec smiley


    --

    1986 BMW 325i Cabrio Alpine Weiss/Black Leather - German Spec 
    2006 Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 Black/Black Leather 

    Ex: ''91 BMW 535i, '91 BMW 318i, '89 BMW 525i, '74 Mercedes-Benz 280E, '87 BMW 325is, '86 BMW 325e, '05 Ford Focus ZX4 S, '85.5 Porsche 944

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    noone1:

    Not a different story at all. It's very easy to do.

    Corvette and Viper are regularly comparable, if not sometimes stomping European exotics in performance tests for pennies on the dollar. Why would you think Ford is any different? Imagine what they can do with a $450K budget without even caring about making money. Ferrari budgets to make a profit on a $300K car. Ford budgeted to most likely lose money on a $450K car.

    No car company is significantly ahead or more capable than any other. They simply have difference business models, style, and long-term plans. Vipers have way more downforce and aero grip than any exotic. Why? Because Ferrari owners do not want giant wings and canards on their car. Why doesn't Porsche make the 911 Turbo 700hp? Because they don't want to.

    I'd also point out that Corvette over the years has not only matched Ferrari in performance, but they've also done it more efficiently with better MPG.

    Hmm, I have a vastly different view.

    A) yes, suppliers deliver a lot of know-how, but they mostly have no clue about the total package that is the car. Car manufacturers are in control when it comes to manufacturability, maintainability and for example the dynamic behavior in the road.

    B) No, building a normal street car is not easy. Why do you think there are so many shit cars? Either they drive shit, or they have very expensive reliability issues, or you need to tear the complete car apart if you want to change a light bulb... all because building such a complex machine is not easy.

    C) No, building a hypercar is not the same as building a normal family sedan. Especially in the US, where car manufacturers are not so interested in building small and/or lightweight cars. The current hypercars are at the edge of the envelope of what is possible nowadays, something which demands very special knowledge of the design team. Knowledge that the design team of a standard family sedan does not have.

    So concluding, I think that the new GT is a marvel; it looks the bees knees and the specs are impressive, but I can understand why people have some reservations and a "seeing is believing" attitude. This is not just to bash on Ford or because they feel that "their" brand is threatened, but because they know how difficult it is to build such a complicated machine.


    --


    Porsche, separates Le Mans from Le Boys


    Re: The new Ford GT

    The concerns about Ford being able to pull off a complex supercar are a bit strange, given that Porsche has had a long series of issues with its in-house developed 918, as regular RT readers will know.  Without the hybrid tech, the new Ford GT is a relatively traditional layout road-legal racecar, and outsourcing its construction to a racecar builder makes complete sense.  In any case, there are few of these cars that will ever log significant enough miles to showcase any design problems.  


    --

    2011 Range Rover Sport S/C,  2009 Porsche 911S



    Re: The new Ford GT

    absolutely love it


    --
    Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary... That's what gets you.

    Re: The new Ford GT

    RC:

    Everyone can make a good race car if they hire the right people and pump enough money into that project.

    Street car? Different story. Completely different requirements, incl. safety, emissions and whatnot.

    Again, it is built by the same company that built the One 77 a few years back.

    If a small company like Pagani can build a supercar Ford with a supplier can do it 10x.


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Exactly, it'll nothing like your GT500.. which is very poorly constructed angry


    --

    1986 BMW 325i Cabrio Alpine Weiss/Black Leather - German Spec 
    2006 Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 Black/Black Leather 

    Ex: ''91 BMW 535i, '91 BMW 318i, '89 BMW 525i, '74 Mercedes-Benz 280E, '87 BMW 325is, '86 BMW 325e, '05 Ford Focus ZX4 S, '85.5 Porsche 944

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Atzporsche:

    Exactly, it'll nothing like your GT500.. which is very poorly constructed angry

    I bet you've never driven one but this car has only that many fans because it delivers a substantial "punch" for little money. Driving this car at the limit is the scariest thing I ever experienced. Actually, driving this car on the Autobahn at over 300 kph, something not really challenging in most modern sports cars, scared the shit out of me. I would have kept it though if I could afford having two weekend toys but unfortunately...

    So yes, amazing fun for little money but not even close to a good and modern sports car. For unexperienced drivers, actually a potential death trap... Smiley


    --

    RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet (2015), Porsche Cayenne S Diesel (2017), Audi R8 V10 Plus (2016), Mini JCW (2015)


    Re: The new Ford GT

    So we are in agreement smileykissI've never driven one 300km/h but I have here in Canada, obviously our terrible speed limits won't allow anywhere near the limits so I can only imagine.. but I can imagine it. 


    --

    1986 BMW 325i Cabrio Alpine Weiss/Black Leather - German Spec 
    2006 Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 Black/Black Leather 

    Ex: ''91 BMW 535i, '91 BMW 318i, '89 BMW 525i, '74 Mercedes-Benz 280E, '87 BMW 325is, '86 BMW 325e, '05 Ford Focus ZX4 S, '85.5 Porsche 944

     



    Re: The new Ford GT

    Weight seems high. Dry weight is over 3000 lbs, yet the car looks tiny.


    Re: The new Ford GT

    From MT: 

    Ford copies its Italian rivals in only quoting a dry weight at this point (around 3,050 pounds), but we’re told “race fluids not including fuel” add 120 pounds. Figuring it’ll carry a minimum of 20 gallons of fuel, add another 120 pounds for a “fully wet” curb weight estimate of 3,300 pounds. That would make it a bit lighter than a Ferrari 488 GTB, but heavier than the McLaren.

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    No idea how it could weigh 3300 lbs.


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Atzporsche:

    So we are in agreement smileykissI've never driven one 300km/h but I have here in Canada, obviously our terrible speed limits won't allow anywhere near the limits so I can only imagine.. but I can imagine it. 

    Trust me, there is no fun in driving a GT500 over 300 kph...Smiley I was never that scared in any other car I owned.


    --

    RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet (2015), Porsche Cayenne S Diesel (2017), Audi R8 V10 Plus (2016), Mini JCW (2015)


    Re: The new Ford GT

    noone1:

    No idea how it could weigh 3300 lbs.

    Probably using heavier isotopes of carbon...


    --

    2011 Range Rover Sport S/C,  2009 Porsche 911S


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Intersting tidbit from AB:

    Wait, what? Calabogie? Yes. It's a 20-turn, 3.1 road course one hour west of Ottawa. We spoke with Ford Executive Vice President Raj Nair and Ford Performance Director Dave Pericak for explanation on this and other Ford GT trivia. As for the track, Nair explained that Calabogie is close to the Multimatic facility in Toronto where the GT is assembled. "It gave us a lot of opportunity to do a lot of back and forth [to the factory] without a lot of travel time...and that was the best place to get an apples-to-apples comparison," he said.

    The numbers, for the sake of posterity, we obtained with the same driver using fresh tires and a full tank of gas on all three cars in identical conditions, according to Ford. The resulting laps times were Ford GT, 2:09.8; McLaren 675LT, 2:10.8; Ferrari 458 Speciale, 2:12.9. Sure, but who besides Ford uses Calabogie as a benchmark? Nair continued, "we've run the car and the competitive vehicles at other tracks, not necessarily in the final configuration and not necessarily with apples-to-apples numbers with fresh tires and the same driver."

    Asked whether the Ford GT would produce similar results on benchmark tracks such as the Nurburgring Nordschleife, Virginia International Raceway, or Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Nair responded with certainty: "Absolutely."

    Another notable point of the press release is Ford's claim that the GT has a dry weight of 3,054 pounds. Dry weight is the alternative truth of the automotive world, in that it has no bearing on reality. Technically it refers to a car's curb weight with no fluids whatsoever, which is almost impossible to prove and can differ greatly from the rolling curb weight. When pressed, Nair said the "race car dry" (filled with all fluids and ready to drive but without fuel) weight of the GT is 3,173 pounds. This figure is used to eliminate different fuel tank capacities when comparing weights.

    Ferrari and McLaren list non-dry curb weights of 3,075 and 2,927 pounds, respectively. The latter is listed as DIN, or German standard weight, which includes 90 percent of the fuel. US-spec cars are often heavier due to crash regulation necessities like side-impact airbags. Nair isn't out to refute other carmaker claims but noted that Ford's measurements of the McLaren came out to 2,985 pounds without fuel.

    "They are lighter than us, we admit that," says Nair. He goes on to explain that the Ford GT's carbon-fiber monocoque and aluminum components saved a lot of weight, "but we also went through a conscious decision of adding the active aero and adding the active suspension." Nair continued, "The simulation said it was worth adding the active dynamics, both the aero and suspension, because it would improve the lap time more than the weight penalty."
     

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Info dump from insider:


    Calaboogie is a very tight and windy track. Lots of corners on top of one another. Plays to cars that have very good transient performance. (Which I built into the car design.)

    Ford and MTC have used that track now for years. We had 10-12 cars of varying types (including a 458 Speciale, Corvette, GTR, Macca, etc, etc.). We had pro drivers run each around the track and get objective and subjective numbers on all the cars for comparo. We had Ford and MTC people drive all the cars on the back roads doing same thing. A huge database of competitor info was creted from all this and was used in making sure teh car would be better than it's rivals. The consensus-on track and off track was the 458 Speciale was the best car there and the best sports car in the world. So we set our sights and making a better car than that. Which I believe we did.

    The weight of the car was driven up from what I would have wanted by the addition of the active aero and active suspension bits. It just all adds up, bit by bit. By as mentioned all the simulation work showed the car was faster with the added bits than without. So why they are there.

    Besides, when has anybody taken a Ferrari published weight number (or any number) seriously? Ferrari is famous for creative numbers! Like giving out an L/D for the street 458 that was nowhere near reality. Like so far from reality that it was laughable. (What they did was take the lowest Cd number the car had-based on it's active aero bits set for low drag and then take the highest Cl number tha car had-based on it's active aero
    set for max downforce-and combined those two numbers for their L/D. Of course the fact that it was impossible to get both at same time was a minor detail.)

    We weighed the 458 Speciale-and its weight "as delivered" as a street car is no where near the Ferrari published numbers. Go weigh one yourself...

    As I have stated before -the big thing about the Ford GT is just how much effort was put into making the car's feedback as pure and linear and race like as possible. More so that any car out there. Add in the pure race car components the thing has and you have the purest race car to road car connection of any current production car.

    That was a big, big goal for us. Make a car that could win LeMans, be superior to a 458 Speciale (It is) and have the best feedback possible for a street car. I think we hit that too.

    For those people how have bought the car-congrats-it is not perfect-the NVH is not "Mercedes like", etc but it is a very special car. A huge amount of effort went into making sure of that ( every person at Ford and MTC who worked on the car-everyone's work was a bit brilliant) .

    I wish I could afford one. But being the chief engineer on the program didn't pay well enough to let that happen....

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    However, the weight of the spez seems to be fairly close to the GT. Here are a few members:

    There is some confusion about weights.Speciale has to weight 1395 kg with all fluids but not fuel..passengers and optionals.Mine weights as I have shown in the past, 1433 kg (38 kg heavier than declared) including all optionals and fluids but not fuel.This is not a pig at all in my opinion.But I agree, she is heavier than declared

     

    We recently weighed my good friend's Speciale, and with full fuel it was 3303 lbs. Of note, my GT3 with full fuel in the extended range tank (about 24 gal capacity) was 3308 with full fuel. The Speciale cross weights were exactly 50.0%. Since I think the Speciale has about 23 gal capacity, the cars are almost identical in total weight.

     

    Same scales, same location, same loading configuration. Neither car has particularly "heavy" or "light" options. All stock including wheels and tires. Speciale is 173 lb (78 kg) lighter than Italia in same configuration.

    2015 US-Spec Speciale, completely full tank of fuel, no driver, no passenger, no modifications, no ballast: 3,321 lb
    LF 718 lb
    RF 709 lb
    LR 937 lb
    RR 957 lb
    Front 43.0%
    Rear 57.0%
    LF/RR 50.4% (50.0% with driver in car)
    RF/LR 49.6% (50.0% with driver in car)

    2013 US-Spec Italia, completely full tank of fuel, no driver, no passenger, no modifications, no ballast: 3,494 lb
    LF 730 lb
    RF 766 lb
    LR 999 lb
    RR 999 lb
    Front 42.8%
    Rear 57.2%
    LF/RR 49.5% (49.3% with driver in car)
    RF/LR 50.5% (50.7% with driver in car)

     

    Mine was 1425kg on empty fuel tanks; but with all other fluids. I have no luxury options, no front lifter; but I have the active headlights and heavier anti UV windscreen. No carbon fibre options either.

     

    So it seems pretty close to what the GT weights. Im curious to know what it would weight without the add-ons? Maybe 2700 dry?


    Re: The new Ford GT

    First testing (in-house alas) but the GT is quite a bit faster than 458 S and 675LT  angel

    http://www.autoblog.com/2017/01/25/ford-gt-faster-than-ferrari-458-mclaren-675lt/


    --

    1986 BMW 325i Cabrio Alpine Weiss/Black Leather - German Spec 
    2006 Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 Black/Black Leather 

    Ex: ''91 BMW 535i, '91 BMW 318i, '89 BMW 525i, '74 Mercedes-Benz 280E, '87 BMW 325is, '86 BMW 325e, '05 Ford Focus ZX4 S, '85.5 Porsche 944

     


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Atzporsche:

    First testing (in-house alas) but the GT is quite a bit faster than 458 S and 675LT  angel

    http://www.autoblog.com/2017/01/25/ford-gt-faster-than-ferrari-458-mclaren-675lt/

    The numbers, for the sake of posterity, we obtained with the same driver using fresh tires and a full tank of gas on all three cars in identical conditions, according to FordSmiley Case closed. Smiley


    --

    RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet (2015), Porsche Cayenne S Diesel (2017), Audi R8 V10 Plus (2016), Mini JCW (2015)


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Of course it's faster than rivals indecision


    Re: The new Ford GT

    There may be hope for those that didn't get one.

    https://www.motormag.com.au/news/1702/ford-hints-at-gt-competition-series-release

     


    --

    "A man wrapped up in himself makes for a very small bundle."


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Apparently Ford is taking care of the weight issue. This is the car to have. NOTHING looks better on the market today.

    http://jalopnik.com/the-ford-gt-competition-series-dumps-the-weight-to-terr-1792681415


    --

    "A man wrapped up in himself makes for a very small bundle."


    Re: The new Ford GT

    Any car without AC is a fail. Unlivable in the majority of climates.


    Re: The new Ford GT

    nberry:

    Apparently Ford is taking care of the weight issue. This is the car to have. NOTHING looks better on the market today.

    http://jalopnik.com/the-ford-gt-competition-series-dumps-the-weight-to-terr-1792681415

    Nope. That was the competition package.  Still the same weight as originally published. 

    http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a32721/ford-gt-competition-series/


    Re: The new Ford GT

    I'd have a McLaren 720s over this any day


     
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