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Ford Motor Company calls it "the pace car for an entire company."
And it would appear the U.S. now has it's very own legitimate exotic supercar - the Ford GT.
The car's performance is on par with any production automobile the world has to offer.
Warsaw's Rice Ford, which is celebrating its 20th year in business this year, took delivery of one of the cars last week.
There will be 1,400 of the cars made this year and 1,400 in 2006. After that, the engine will be rendered unusable by U.S. pollution standards. There are 5,000 Ford dealers in the U.S., so John and Dan Rice, owners of the local dealership, consider themselves fortunate to have one.
The car was procured through Ford's dealer allocation program.
There's no need to ask to take a test drive. The car isn't for sale.
"We plan to have it on display to help with our anniversary celebration," John Rice said.
The car carries a sticker price of $148,695, but you couldn't buy one for that. A quick check on eBay shows the cars going for $180,000 to $200,000.
The care is a throwback to the legendary Ford GT that dominated endurance racing in the late 1960s.
"The response to the (prototype) after the 2000 auto show was so overwhelming that Ford decided to put the car into production", Rice said.
He added that the future of the GT after 2006 is uncertain, but that a more affordable productio model may be in the offing.
But for 2005-2006, as the Ford GT brochure immodestly states - "The streets of America have a new master."
With 550 horsepower and 500 lb.-ft. of torque, it's tought to argue.
The motoring press already has weighted in.
For its January 2004 cover story, "Judgment Day!" a Car and Driver magazine test driver drove a Ford GT from 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds. Car and Driver also recorded a quarter-mile time of 11.6 seconds at 128 mph. In the same test, Ferrari's $193,000 Challenge Stradale took four seconds to reach 60 mph and was 0.8 second and 13 mph slower through the quarter-mile.
"It wasn't even a contest," wrote Car and Driver's Larry Webster. "The Ford GT so completely dusted off its two highly recognized competitors (the Ferrari Stradale and Porsche 911 GT3) that if we wanted to make this a real challenge, we would have had to go way up the 'supercar' price ladder . . . The Ferrari and Porsche both require an upshift before 60 mph, but the Ford does not, which accounts for some of the huge sprint-time advantage."
