Les.......... Gloria here.
Sorry I don't have time to sit around here and debate with you all the time........... however, as I am far from independently wealthy, I do have to work for a living.
A few things here. I'm hoping that you actually know this, as you seem to like to portray yourself as all knowledgable.
Ford has had a working relationship with Rousch Racing for many, many years. Rousch racing has done much of building, tuning, and testing of the low volume engines used in SVT products (along with Ford people). Just like they had a hand in the Ford GT engine. This is no surprise to anyone who has followed SVT as long as I have (back to the old SVO days from 1984).
The thing that I am having a hard time understanding, is your animosity for this car. Do you not understand the logistics of a major manufacturer like Ford, who builds 10's to 100's of thousands of the same vehicle......... taking on the task of producing a grounds up, completely hand built car??? There is nothing on the Ford GT that is production Ford. The closest you get, is the displacement of the engine. Thus, Ford utilized the skilled people that they had at their disposal. This included Rousch Racing for some engine development work, and Saleen (whom they have had a working relationship with, for many years) for the skills of assembling a hand built, very low production, car.
To not utilize the best people you have available, to do the work, is to be stupid.
The car is assembled at
the Wixom assembly facility, in its own building.
You like to keep coming up with statements that would lead one to believe that you think the Viper is a far superior car....... as is the Z06 Vette. Cheaper........ yes. Superior??? In whose eyes???
Lets be a little honest here.......... the Z06 is JUST a Corvette. It gets to play upon the economies of scale, and an existing platform/car, to achieve what it does, at the price it does. Put someone who has no clues about cars, in front of a Z06....... and they will state "nice Vette." No more, and no less.
The Viper has been around for close to 15 years now. I would hope that they had it figured out by now. It certainly wasn't when it came out. Go do research on the horrendous issues that first Gen Vipers had......... then come back and tell me how superior they are to the GT. The cars still have issues.......... some of them dating back since the beginning.......... yet you hold them up as some standard bearer. Sorry, that is a standard that I hope the GT DOESN'T live up to.
You really like to stretch the truth here........ and then hope that those that read this information are too stupid to actually research it themselves.
Case in point........ your constant crying about all the recalls on the GT. There has been 1. Here, I will spell it for you........... one. How about in capitals.......... ONE. You do understand the difference between a recall and a TSB....... right??? You do understand that a recall is safety related........ correct??? Last time I checked, I don't remember leaking seals being a safety issue. However, I may be wrong.......... as I only work on cars (not any longer, except for my own), and owned an auto repair and towing business for 9 years.
Look at the histories of all exotics, including your precious CGT. For $440K, you would think that they could have had that car sorted out a little better than they did. Lawsuits by owners.......... lemon law filings......... horrific resale value...... sorry, but I expected a bit more from Porsche. After all, this is a company that is used to building low production cars.
You complain and whine about everything about the GT, like it is some conspiracy against you.......... and you alone. You talk about dealer markup, yet fail to talk about franchise agreements which do not allow Ford to interfere with pricing at dealership level. You talk about other vehicles like nobody else does this..... yet there is no talk about the $10K dealer markups on Z06's.......... markups on Vipers (you know, to those who were so "unlucky" as to not get an "invitation"), and even the oh so sneaky way that Ferrari dealerships get markups on their cars (their franchise agreements do not allow it, so the owners of the dealerships sell the car to a "friend" who then sells it back to the dealership. The car is now "used" and the dealership can sell it for whatever they want).
You piss and moan about markups, and get mad at the dealerships.......... yet, you should be mad at the consumers. If noone paid the price, noone would try to sell at the price. In other words, everything is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, at that time.
BTW, the majority of people who post at fordgtforums.com are GT owners. Most of the rest are aspiring to own one. I read there, I read on the Viper forums (both the Viper Club, and Viper Alley), the Ferrari forums (met a guy on there that raced against our Yenko Stinger in the early 70's, in his Lola. How cool is that), Corvette forums, and about anything else imaginable (when I have time).
You want to hear me brag about myself??? Here goes. 41 year old mother of a 4-year-old mini motorhead in the making........ married to a wonderful man. There is no big fancy house (our house is fine, with a beautiful view of the Mogollon Rim), and no $440K cars. What there is, is a love of all performance vehicles........ both those that come from the factory, and those which are well build by individuals. We are happy to restore our Yenko, our L78 '68 Camaro, and our '69 Ford Crewcab F250 4x4.
In other words, we are average Joes, with a love for cars. Your ability to buy expensive cars, makes your knowledge no more, or less, valid than mine.
I challenge you to find all those other recalls on the GT. I already know the true answer to that one. BTW, I'm sorry that you have lost people to racing. Unfortunately, it happens all too often. If every car that wrecked at a racetrack, was a POS........ then there would truly be no good cars available.
Now I've stayed up too late, and have to get up too early, to get my son ready for Preschool.......... then go to work......... for too little money. LOL The least I can do is try to get sleep.
