The Ford GT is the latest example of the rich not getting what they want. A look inside the complicated and competitive world of buying supercars.
Even if you have the
$400,000, chances are you're not getting the Ford GT. Having the ready
cash may be the least difficult part of scoring a supercar these days.
Only
500 GTs will be handbuilt over two years, and now Dearborn executives
have to figure out who will get them. Ford is joining a tiny cadre of
carmakers who deal in the black art of supercar exclusivity, an arena
where manufacturers have the upper hand, and the rich don't always get
what they want.
Ferrari
wrote the rulebook, vowing to always make one less car than the market
demanded. But the market for supercars—and the number of qualified
buyers globally—has surged. It took only a fortnight to sell out 500
McLaren 675LT Spiders (base price: $372,600). And all 40 examples of the
$2-million-plus Lamborghini Centenarios were snapped up sight-unseen.
"When
we first sat down and started thinking how to handle this, we
benchmarked the competition by looking at Ferrari and McLaren," says
Henry Ford III, global marketing manager of Ford Performance (and yes, a
direct descendant of the Henry). "But we needed an experience that was unique to Ford."
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