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How The 2017 Ford GT Came About And Why It Looks The Way It Does

This article is more than 9 years old.

Bombshells like the 2017 Ford GT don’t come often.

Few within Ford even knew much about the mysterious hypercar before its surprise revelation at the North American International Auto Show.

“We actually had a little skunkworks in the Dearborn studio downstairs that no one knew about,” said Moray Callum, Ford’s vice president of design, in a one-on-one interview following the GT’s debut in Detroit. “And it was done on the quiet, with a limited amount of people.”

The 2017 Ford GT was conceived to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company’s legendary victory at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race, in which three Ford GT40 race cars swept first, second and third place. It had to be fast tracked from concept to production, with testing and development compressed into the next 18 months in order to go on sale by the end of next year.

“We’ve done this in record time,” Callum said. “I tell people it’s the ‘fastest’ car we’ve ever designed”—he means, the fastest in terms of development time, and the fastest in terms of acceleration and speed.

Ford says the GT will have one of the best power-to-weight ratios of any production vehicle, thanks to ultra-light carbon-fiber construction and more than 600 horsepower from a new 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V6—an engine derived from a similar one used in Ford’s IMSA Daytona Prototype race car, which recently won The Rolex 24 at Daytona, a 24-hour endurance race.

The GT is revolutionary in that it promises to elevate Ford to a level with Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche and other high-clout makers of seven-figure hyper cars. Like the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder, the Ford GT’s body is made almost entirely of carbon-fiber, and it features exotic technology like an adjustable suspension system similar to that of a race car and a huge rear spoiler that raises and lowers to increase downforce depending on the car’s speed.

But unlike other luxury automakers and their million-dollar machines, Ford aims to eventually democratize the technology showcased on the GT. For example, it announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and DowAska, a joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Turkish carbon fiber manufacturer Aksa Akrilik Kimya Sanayii. They will collaborate on high-volume, low-cost ways to produce carbon fiber.

Ford has not released full specs or pricing for 2017 Ford GT, but it will likely cost a fraction of a hypercar such as the Porsche 918 Spyder, given that the GT's predecessor, built from 2005 to 2006, had a starting price of $149,995. Granted, the new GT forgoes the complicated and costly hybrid-electric systems used on the Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche hyper cars.

The design of the Ford GT is perhaps a bit of a paradox: familiar yet otherworldly, aggressive yet somehow restrained. It was striking enough for a panel of noted automotive designers to award it the Eyes On Design award for best design at the Detroit auto show.

Callum says it would not have been possible to create such a design without today's carbon-fiber technology. In the following edited interview he explains how the car was conceived, why it looks the way it does and what we can expect the production version to look like.

How did this car come about?

The Ford GT40 and subsequently the Ford GT have been such great cars that everyone was always asking us, ‘When are you going to do the next one?’ But it was very much a sort of signal of how we want to be seen as an innovation company. The process we did for this has been a really quick process. We worked hand in hand with engineering in terms of a lot of aerodynamics, a lot of computational fluid dynamics models. And we actually had a little skunkworks in the Dearborn studio downstairs that no one knew about. And it was done on the quiet, with a limited amount of people. Limited interference always makes things go a bit quicker. But we all had the same goal in mind, which was great. No market research on this car—we were just going to build it.

It has a very distinctive look that is by turns familiar yet also progressive. How did you achieve that?

The last Ford GT really was very much a heritage version of the original Ford GT40. So we wanted to pay homage to it, but we wanted to do it in a completely modern, futuristic way. So you can see elements, you’ll recognize the round tail lamps, the exhaust in the middle of the car, the front graphics of the car with the big air scoops, even the relationship of the rear fender with the front fender. But then that’s where it stops. You look at the car and you see you can only build this car today in terms of the technology we’re using, with the fuselage center scoops, with the pontoons and the buttresses.

What technology in particular allowed you to do this?

The flexibility in carbon fiber itself, how you can construct a carbon fiber car with different techniques of bonding. It would be much different if it was made out of steel, I think.

Will we see the GT’s design motifs translated to other Ford vehicles?

I would say it’s not so much design motifs but I think it’s maybe the underlying strategy of understanding aerodynamics and getting that to work on cars. Because aerodynamics really is the last bastion of really getting fuel economy down on cars. So aerodynamics are going to become more and more important, and I think we all need to be better at it. So I think probably the Ford Fusion will not look like this, but I think there’s an element of the use of the technology and the development of true aerodynamics and how we work with engineering that will be a continuing process.

What was the biggest challenge in designing the Ford GT?

I think the challenge was probably in getting some of the areas to work. It’s much easier to make a clay model, but actually working with an engineer and the production guys to actually make things like the buttresses work in reality. Also, just getting that whole mix of elements that are instantly recognizable as a Ford GT, but at the same time 21st century, and really getting that right. And also the time. We’ve done this in record time. But I think that’s quite good as well, because I think there’s a certain rawness in the design. You tend to over think things when you’ve got two or three years to design a car. But I just think there’s an honesty and a rawness with this car that’s really great.

How did you keep it so well under wraps?

Even in the design center we kept it under wraps. We actually created a little studio in the basement. Not even everyone within design knew what was going on. A lot of people are seeing it for the first time today, even within Ford design.

How close is this vehicle to the production version?

This is really as close to the production version as we can do it today. It’s continually being developed, so there might be a few limited changes, but this is not designed as a concept version of a production car, this is the production car as we know it. So there might be a few feasibility issues that move a few lines, the mirrors might have to get a little bit bigger, stuff like that. But, more or less, 95 to 96 percent of the car is there.

Read more from the Detroit auto show:

Showstoppers: The Top 15 Must-See Vehicles From The 2015 Detroit Auto Show

The Beloved Acura NSX Supercar Returns

Jaguar Announces New F-Pace As It Succumbs To SUV Craze

Audi Completely Reinvents Its Q7, With Autonomous Driving And Up To 138 MPG

Or click here to see the biggest Detroit debuts from last year.

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