These days, any Ford GT from either of that model’s two generations (which debuted decades after the original GT40) are worth a significant amount of money. However, that hasn’t always been the case – in fact, it wasn’t too terribly long ago that one could purchase a first-generation Ford GT brand new for $150k, and on the used market that ensued, many were able to scoop one up for less than that – at least, for a while. That’s no longer the case, but this interesting lag in terms of hype surrounding the original Ford GT is something that CEO Jim Farley touched on recently.
“When I joined the company [in 2007] they had like, three auto show cars, ’05 GTs that you could buy in the company for $110,000, and they were like single digit serial numbers. And no one would buy them. Could you imagine buying a Heritage ’05 GT at $120,000? They were everywhere,” Farley said during a recent appearance on the Bring a Trailer podcast.
As they say, hindsight is certainly 20/20, and many of us wish we could rev up the time machine, go back a few years, and purchase a Ford GT at these types of prices. By 2018, values of those earlier GTs had already swollen considerably, and that continues to be the case today. Today, those same models routinely sell for anywhere from $250,000 all the way up to more than $1 million for rarer variants, with most settling into the $400,000-$500,000 range.
This is also true of the last-generation Ford GT, too. In fact, in 2023, the later GT ranked among Bring a Trailer‘s top five models in terms of top sales prices over the course of the entire year. The top-grossing Ford GT of the year – this 84-mile 2020 Liquid Carbon model – hammered for a whopping $1.791 million, which put it squarely in some rarified air, as it was joined by the likes of a 592-mile 2014 Pagani Huayra, a 1967 Porsche 910, a 601-mile 2005 Porsche Carrera GT, and a 2019 Porsche 935 to round out the top five grossers of 2023 among a whopping 37,000 listings.
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Also, keep in mind that the GT was an engineering mess. I and many others saw huge boxes arrive at Ford dealers from Roush with entirely new suspension arms in them. The ones engineered (and tested by SVT—whose testing programs were terrible) were breaking. SVT itself brought these to track events—and they severely overheated. A conversation with an SVT engineer pushing one into the garage after garking its fluid revealed that they knew they overheated in track use… and could do nothing about it. Later engines started to develop an oil leak out of the rear mains, resulting in a diaper fix.
You may remember the article in Car and Driver exposing many of these faults. I and others saw them in person at track events and at our local dealers.
Indeed, SVT claimed at the time that this was the “pace car for the entire company”—which was disastrously accurate.
Having been through every other SVT of that age, with lots of my money wasted, all of them loved to overheat on track. Some got fixed—the ’96 SVT Cobra, for example, got a new cooling system thanks to a TSB. (This was unfortunately because an early article about the car had an interview with a Ford engineer running laps on their own high-speed oval in Arizona, so we’d ask what changed before production.)
Yes, I could have bought a Ford GT, and I am glad I didn’t because it was worthless for what I expected—driving fast and well on the track. The Coletti years were a joke of poor engineering and expensive recalls. That may well have led to his downfall, and eventually, SVT went away. All engineering of special products was brought in-house as part of the regular development process. Things have been far better since then!
The many GT350 engine failures would disagree. Same about the rear bumpers that sagged so poorly, and the fact they had to add coolers to all trims to meet their marketing promises about being track ready.
They also got cheaper. The 2003 Mach1 used mostly the 01 Cobra engine with an improved intake manifold. It was a massive upgrade over a GT or Bullitt. The last Mach1 felt like a parts bin shadow of what was meant to be a BOSS using left over Bullitt engines and PP LV2 parts. It felt like a rushed mess to get a Mach1 out the door after there was such a blow back on the Mach-E getting the name.
I’d also say that Mustang sales being in the tank and new Dark Horses already easily had under MSRP show that bringing them in house is not producing things that impress people. Even more sad when there is no Challenger or Camaro to compete against.
The many Voodoo engine failures are mostly self-inflicted. I spit soda all over my keyboard when an owner was talking about being on their third engine (how the hell does somebody statistically get three bad engines). I’ve owned two GT350s (traded up from a 2017 to a 2020 when Ford revamped the suspension) and I’m going on a combined 95,000 miles with no problems, and I didn’t baby the cars. I run into the rev limiter regularly, tracked and dragged them, and drove all four seasons and my only maintenance are regular oil, oil filter, and air filter changes and keeping an eye on the oil level. The last bit is important since the Voodoo uses low tension rings and likes to rev so it will burn a little oil and that’s where people get into trouble. The Coyote oiling system has a quirk where it traps oil in the passenger side head thanks to crank windage and Ford’s fix was to increase the amount of oil in the pan to compensate for the slower oil return. Let the engine run low on oil (as little as two quarts in a ten-quart system) and the engine can end up starved for oil at high RPM leading to engine failure. It also doesn’t help a lot of drivers love to run the engine cold and bang off the rev limiter before the oil has a chance to get above 160F and really shouldn’t be beating on the engine until the oil is at 180F or more. Follow a few simply rules and the engine will live a happy life. Treat it like they’re coming from a Nissan Altima and earn a FAFO prize.
Oh and all the ST and Raptor products with failed 2.7 and 3.0 Ecoboosts. They were oddly MORE reliable before Ford Performance started to get involved with them and they were just in the Fusion and MKZ. They have gotten worse with each revision and power increase.
Mr Farley will have a few other things to reminisce about in the future also…like how he took the company down a few notches by killing the Fusion and the very much liked Edge. Thank you Mr Farley.