Every year, the folks at Car and Driver magazine round up the hottest new performance cars they can get their mits on; convoy south from their offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan to Alton, Virginia; and see what kind of hot lap times they can extract on the 3.27 miles of track at Virginia International Raceway. It’s called “Lightning Lap”, and it’s an eagerly-anticipated staple of each year’s twelve-issue run.
This year, one high-profile, high-performance car failed to make appearance, leaving a conspicuous (and rather unfortunate) hole in the lineup: the all-new Ford GT supercar.
The magazine did, of course, ask for one, but their wish was not granted by the Blue Oval brand, with no explanation as to why the $450,000+ supercar couldn’t be provided. In Ford’s defense, the Ford GT is in very short supply, with production at Multimatic’s small Ontario factory lagging far behind schedule. On the other hand, if Ford were to supply C/D with an example, the company wouldn’t be sourcing it from its supply of customer cars anyway, and we know the automaker has one or two press cars floating around as numerous publications have driven them.
Curious to know how the car would hold up against the likes of the Ferrari 488 GTB, we hope that C/D can manage to get ahold of a Ford GT for Lightning Lap testing in the future, whether it come from Ford or from a generous fan of the publication.
Better luck next time.
Comments
I haven’t been able to find any other explanation as to Fords Lightning Lap ’17 absence of the Mustang And other stablemate in LL1, the Focus.
Was there no cars made available, or couldn’t the long term Mustang try to represent Ford?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks