Would you buy a $150,000 Ford?

[Dinner]

Well, Ford Motor Company thinks they'll be able to find people who are willing to pay that much for their latest sports car. The Ford GT, the spiritual successor of the famous Ford GT40 of the 1960's, is powered by a supercharged 5.4-liter V-8 engine and was designed to out accelerate and out handle everything which the European exotics produce and to cost a good deal less to boot.

The original Ford GT40 was designed as Henry Ford II revenge upon Enzo Ferrari because, in the 1960's Ferrari signed a deal to sell the Ferrari Motor Co to Ford but at the last second Ferrari backed out of the deal and refused to honor the contract. Ford the designed and built the GT40 in record time and the GT40 dominated European motor sports for several years. Eventually so many Europeans were upset by constinently losing to the Americans that they rewrote the racing rules so as to specifically exclude the Ford GT40 from competetion.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/10/11/ford.ferrari.ap/index.html

[Verto]

This is old news; I don't know why CNN is just now picking up on this.

[MRT144]

only if its a jaguar

[Joseph]

They will sell some, maybe not many, but some.

[Asher]

Surely this is some clerical error, they added an extra order of magnitude.

[Ted Striker]

they'll sell all of them


dodge made a MAJOR image comeback when they released the Viper

this is a smart move on Ford's part

[Asher]

Isn't the Viper about $60K?

[Ted Striker]

A single hot car can bring up an entire company

Look at the amazing comeback that Nissan has made this year with the release of the new Z and also the Infiniti G35

People are buying other Nissans because they associate them with those hot cars

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Asher
Isn't the Viper about $60K?

runs 80K retail but not sure what the acutal price is that people pay for it

[Kaak]

At 160 kph (100 mph) in third gear, the car was still manageable on the road course, with very responsive steering. It has six gears and can reach more than 320 kph (200 mph).

i'll take two

[Az]

It's clear that they've got a very serious branding problem.

Honestly, it looks like a very good car.

Really, I don't know what you have against Fords. the Mondeo was a great solid family car, for example.

[Q Classic]

no.

i can think of plenty of better investments to make with 150k. like real estate.

if i wanted something that lost its value as fast as a car does, i'd buy new computers. i wouldn't have to fork over as much as i would a car.

[CerberusIV]

This may work in the US but they aren't going to shift many in Europe where they will either have to hike the price a bit or compete directly with Jaguar, whom they own. If the price here is around £100-120,000 they are up against the Porsche 911, the Ferrari 360 and the new Lamborghini for not much less money. If less they may hurt their own subsidiary's sales.

The Viper listed at around £70,000 in the UK last year and corners like a pig in sh1t. They only sold a handful.

Ford in Europe is associated with pretty good mass market cars that sell well, not exotica. They barely have a presence in motorsport here, apart from rallying.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
A single hot car can bring up an entire company

Look at the amazing comeback that Nissan has made this year with the release of the new Z and also the Infiniti G35

People are buying other Nissans because they associate them with those hot cars

I think the other way around. I would not buy a hot Nissan Z because I associate it with the lame Nissan cars.

[Az]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
no.

i can think of plenty of better investments to make with 150k. like real estate.

if i wanted something that lost its value as fast as a car does, i'd buy new computers. i wouldn't have to fork over as much as i would a car.

Actually, luxury sports cars actually gain in value as time goes. It's very interesting.