Ford apparently didn’t make nearly as many of their GT supercars as they would have hoped last year.
When Ford announced the second generation of GT way back in 2016 it came with a promise to build 250 of the hand-built supercars per year. Along with that, they took applications from over 6,000 well-to-do Ford enthusiasts to decide which lucky applicant would be allowed to actually purchase one.
It now seems like Ford is making some of the chosen would-be GT owners wait. According to new info discovered by Motor Authority on a Ford GT message board, they only managed to make 138 examples of their 647 hp supercar in 2017.
Ford was quick to issue a statement once the number of built GTs came to light. "This is a hand-built supercar, which we are committed to deliver flawlessly," the company said. "We built into our process an extended ramp-up due to several factors such as global homologation testing and supplier constraints."
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Part of the problem is that Ford isn’t actually the company making them. The GT is being handbuilt at Multimatic, a small-scale manufacturer in Ontario, Canada. They normally make performance auto parts for various carmakers, and while they’ve been known to build bespoke supercars before, they’ve never been asked to build them at a rate of one per working day.
Multimatic was able to ramp up production to meet the one-per-day rate they’d been asked to perform, but it wasn’t until later in 2017 that they were able to produce GTs at such breakneck speeds.
Ford had initially promised a production run of 1,000 supercars over 4 years, but since they fell short of the initial 250 in 2017 they’ll be almost 200 short by the time 2020 rolls around. However, the company reaffirmed their commitment to the 1,000 number in a statement to Motor Authority.
"We’re sticking to our initial commitment of 1,000 vehicles," a Ford spokesperson said.
It’s a good thing too. Ford is reopening applications for the GT later this year, and they’re expected to get thousands more interested parties. Maybe this time they'll pick someone other than famous wrestlers.