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2017 Ford GT Sells for $1.65m


jhbchess
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So much for fords efforts to stop flippers. I was really hoping they had this figured out and had thoroughly vetted the buyers to avoid just this.

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Someone figured out to do a private sale out of public view and let the subsequent purchaser go do an auction sale. Ford lawyers probably told Ford not to risk a suit against the subsequent purchaser because if it went south it would remove the deterrent value against the other 497 some odd purchasers who haven’t resold yet. They’ll ride out their Cena suit and hope for the best.

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So much for fords efforts to stop flippers. I was really hoping they had this figured out and had thoroughly vetted the buyers to avoid just this.

 

:iamwithstupid:

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They could have easily stopped this kind of thing from happening by just announcing a much larger production run. Tomorrow they should announce they will increase production another 2000 cars., a track oriented version, and a convertible. They don't obviously have to follow through with it, but it would destroy any premium and shake out the weak hands. The people who really want the car will keep it and those that just cared about the value will dump it.

 

In my opinion, the prices for these cars will settle way down. Yes it's unique and pretty rare, but I don't feel like it made the waves it should have. It was expected to be a race car the ended up on the road, but ended up being slower on the track than other road cars like the 720S. Cool car, but in my opinion it has already come and gone.

 

I would not pay anywhere near even $1 million for a new GT.

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In my opinion, the prices for these cars will settle way down. Yes it's unique and pretty rare, but I don't feel like it made the waves it should have. It was expected to be a race car the ended up on the road, but ended up being slower on the track than other road cars like the 720S. Cool car, but in my opinion it has already come and gone.

 

I would not pay anywhere near even $1 million for a new GT.

 

 

eh, If you look at it from pure pragmatics I feel like you're kinda missing the point of the car. Thus far it's the highest order of wringing the most out of the least, and no doubt it is the most 'race car' you can get on the street currently. If you appreciate it for what that is, and the fact that it's even remotely close to cars that were built just to insanely fast with no rules, speaks volumes.

 

Unfortunately what it's good at, almost nobody will ever utilize to really see how superior it is to any 'street' car.

 

Is it worth $1.6? Apparently this guy thought so, and a handful of other people were still interested at $1.5+.

 

I personally think the more interesting move would be to make another car, have it be exactly the same and drop a TT 5.2 in it. Fine, all you guys want a V8, here you go. It's not as 'special' as the le mans car, but it's what a lot of people griped about. Charge $800k, only have 2% more R&D, and you don't step on the dicks of everyone who jumped through circus hoops to get the first one. Would the car be better with 1k hp? May be not, but people would buy it.

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eh, If you look at it from pure pragmatics I feel like you're kinda missing the point of the car. Thus far it's the highest order of wringing the most out of the least, and no doubt it is the most 'race car' you can get on the street currently. If you appreciate it for what that is, and the fact that it's even remotely close to cars that were built just to insanely fast with no rules, speaks volumes.

 

Unfortunately what it's good at, almost nobody will ever utilize to really see how superior it is to any 'street' car.

 

Is it worth $1.6? Apparently this guy thought so, and a handful of other people were still interested at $1.5+.

 

I personally think the more interesting move would be to make another car, have it be exactly the same and drop a TT 5.2 in it. Fine, all you guys want a V8, here you go. It's not as 'special' as the le mans car, but it's what a lot of people griped about. Charge $800k, only have 2% more R&D, and you don't step on the dicks of everyone who jumped through circus hoops to get the first one. Would the car be better with 1k hp? May be not, but people would buy it.

 

Is it though? To me it seems like the road going GT suffers from being neither the ideal road car design nor the ideal track-day car design. You don't get the best track-day car, nor do you get the best daily driver. For example, I'm wondering if the road car suffers in performance because the race car was designed first and such that it needed a lot of things that they simply couldn't do on the road car, and then in order to make the road car do what it needed, compromising solutions had to be used.

 

The aero and weight are two things that stand out to me on the road car. I've never gotten the chance to sit in a new GT, but it seems very tight, very small, has no storage space, and has all carbon panels. The teardrop design looks very slim too, yet it's not that light of a car. A 720S is very similar in weight, but has considerable amounts of luxury trim, occupant space, storage space, and an aluminum body. Active aero and suspension that lower are available on each. Move up to the Senna and now you're looking at a car that's a few hundreds of pounds lighter while incorporating even more active aero.

 

I believe I saw an interview where Ford said the reason the car weighs as much as it does is because they had to add the active aero, hydraulic lift etc. Yes, it was a net gain in performance, but I get the feeling that had it been designed as a road car first, the design would have been optimized such that the weight stayed low and incorporated all the trick active bits.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's a very cool car and I'd much rather have a new Ford GT than a 720S, but that's at a somewhat comparable price. At $450K or whatever the MSRP was, I think it's worth it. $1.8M? I see no value in that on the road or on the track. For $1.8M (which is what this buyer probably paid after fees), you could probably get a Valkyrie or Mercedes One.

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You have to admit, ONE is still pretty good, especially considering they didn’t just go to the current FGT owners, maybe the most impressive ownership group in all of cars.

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If you know where I can find a Valkyrie or AMG Mercedes Project One for $1.8 million, please immediately let me know. That's not even close to the MSRP, let alone market value.

 

One interesting start point is that GT actually shares more in common with those two cars than it does with something like a 720S. Multimatic is doing heavy work and production on Project One. Valkyrie they are doing chassis and body construction. There are some similarities between GT and Project One; Valkyrie is another level of spaceship. In any case, they are all hand-assembled standalone cars, done using hand-laid pre-preg CF vs. a derivative unit that is based on a mass produced CFRP RTM tub. I know Larry Holt pretty well and it's really amazing to walk around a race paddock with him. He does shit for everyone. The guy is a genius, and he deserves a TV show that I would watch every night.

 

The road car/race car development bit with GT, while concurrent, was definitely a case where everything on the road car was done in service of the race car. This means the road car was not designed to meet statistic X, Y or Z. The timeline for both was extremely compressed, so when it got late in the game for race car development, road car stuff took a backseat. There is zero question that if Ford wanted to build the fastest road going car they could build, this would definitely not be it. Part of the public perception that it should be I chalk up to the laughable attempts Ford initially made to say "oh are we going to race it?" As far as race car for the road, there have been times where between BoP and atmospheric baseline the race car itself is making a horsepower number that starts with a 3, so HP doesn't really make a race car. I've talked to a couple of the full-time race car guys who have been pretty shocked at how similar the road car feels to the IMSA/WEC cars.

 

I have about 3,000 miles in the GT at this point, so I have a reasonable handle on the car. I will say that it is a perfectly suitable road car and most of the inane whining about how brutal it is funny. Pretty sure nobody was under the impression it was a weekend hauler. It's not real harsh on decent roads. GT3 RS is much harsher to me on our local roads (which is my other favorite car on earth, and is also "slow" these days). What I would consider as "harshness" is the overall NVH in the car relative to the market, specifically sound. You hear a lot of mechanical noise that you do not hear in other cars. Loud fans, fuel system noise, various clicks and whirs, carbon stuff touching other carbon stuff. That's a positive to me. It's not a daily driver. The opposite, where it's indistinguishable from any other really fast, really competent, and otherwise boring supercar I don't particularly need to drive again would be a concern. Ford GT and some harsher Lamborghinis have a lot in common to me in that they are both the right amount of wrong.

 

I drove the Performante and GT back to back last week and it was a bit of a holy shit moment for me. The Performante is an incredible car, but my perception behind the wheel is that it is an already great road car turned up to 11. The GT is immediately, obviously, and irreversibly a race car turned into a road car. They are inherently two different types of machine. Between your ass being bolted to the floor and the extremely direct hydraulic steering, everything on the road is transmitted directly to the driver, which is what you want in a race car. But it is not fatiguing, and it's never unpredictable. I would not recommend it if your goal is creature comfort.

 

I've definitely driven faster stuff but the first time I took the car out on the track I knew I'd pretty much ruined the car. It is just fcuking beautiful to drive on a race track. It's so good and so much fun and so responsive to the driver without beating them up that it makes driving it on the street invariably a let down. It feels like a giant Radical SR3. A lot of guys will track them and the car will make them look better than they are. I know this because I bring these people to the track. On a public road, there are nicer things to drive, but I will gladly take that trade knowing what the GT is and what it represents.

 

p.s, people from here on out are toast. There's a 2 year security agreement now. No way can you be a lying dipshit and flip it. Obviously the car won't hold up at $1.8 million, but there's a whole bunch of people getting these cars that don't really give a fcuk what they're worth because they aren't for sale.

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p.s, people from here on out are toast. There's a 2 year security agreement now. No way can you be a lying dipshit and flip it. Obviously the car won't hold up at $1.8 million, but there's a whole bunch of people getting these cars that don't really give a fcuk what they're worth because they aren't for sale.

 

Dave, can you clarify what you mean here? I don’t follow.

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Dave, can you clarify what you mean here? I don’t follow.

 

2 year lien attached to the car now going forward. I think it started in March.

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2 year lien attached to the car now going forward. I think it started in March.

 

 

Wow, they should have done that from the get go. Any idea how this guy got out from under ford?

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If Ford cared so much, why didn't they just do it the correct way from the start? That is contracts 101 material. I believe even someone without a law degree could draft up a contract that would stand up in court.

 

There were so many simple things they could have done to prevent this from happening, but it sounds like they decided just to take a pinky swear.

1. Personal gaurantee

2. Don't sell to a company, sell to only an individual

3. Lease the cars with $450K down, $1 option to buy after 2 years

4. Perfect a lien on the car

5. Secure the right of first refusal and go after the sell for damages since it is easy to prove the right of first refusal was worth $1.5M.

 

List goes on...

 

If Ford got played here, they should fire their lawyers.

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Wow, they should have done that from the get go. Any idea how this guy got out from under ford?

 

Long story. The original owner probably won't, but he may not live long enough to see consequences.

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If Ford cared so much, why didn't they just do it the correct way from the start? That is contracts 101 material. I believe even someone without a law degree could draft up a contract that would stand up in court.

 

There were so many simple things they could have done to prevent this from happening, but it sounds like they decided just to take a pinky swear.

1. Personal gaurantee

2. Don't sell to a company, sell to only an individual

3. Lease the cars with $450K down, $1 option to buy after 2 years

4. Perfect a lien on the car

5. Secure the right of first refusal and go after the sell for damages since it is easy to prove the right of first refusal was worth $1.5M.

 

List goes on...

 

If Ford got played here, they should fire their lawyers.

 

Why do you care so much? It is weaker language than I would have used, but I think Ford underestimated what a lying bunch of cunts most people are, and their comfort level with being branded as such. The supercar world is full of gross and shitty people that will sign endless papers saying they will not flip cars and then do it. It's a sad reflection on society as a whole.

 

You're making the assumption it won't hold up in court though. The Cena thing is still in process and will most likely get settled. The only thing that was settled in Indiana was that they couldn't prevent the sale by the *second* owner via Mecum. The car was sold just prior to the auction, which I personally think (but don't know) was a combined effort by Jack Miller/Mike Flynn/Dana Mecum to inoculate the sale from injunction, figuring the original owner will be dead so who gives a shit what he faces.

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John Cena is still in court over the sale of his FGT, before the 2 years is up this auction sale may help his case..or not

2 year lien attached to the car now going forward. I think it started in March.

 

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If you know where I can find a Valkyrie or AMG Mercedes Project One for $1.8 million, please immediately let me know. That's not even close to the MSRP, let alone market value.

 

One interesting start point is that GT actually shares more in common with those two cars than it does with something like a 720S. Multimatic is doing heavy work and production on Project One. Valkyrie they are doing chassis and body construction. There are some similarities between GT and Project One; Valkyrie is another level of spaceship. In any case, they are all hand-assembled standalone cars, done using hand-laid pre-preg CF vs. a derivative unit that is based on a mass produced CFRP RTM tub. I know Larry Holt pretty well and it's really amazing to walk around a race paddock with him. He does shit for everyone. The guy is a genius, and he deserves a TV show that I would watch every night.

 

The road car/race car development bit with GT, while concurrent, was definitely a case where everything on the road car was done in service of the race car. This means the road car was not designed to meet statistic X, Y or Z. The timeline for both was extremely compressed, so when it got late in the game for race car development, road car stuff took a backseat. There is zero question that if Ford wanted to build the fastest road going car they could build, this would definitely not be it. Part of the public perception that it should be I chalk up to the laughable attempts Ford initially made to say "oh are we going to race it?" As far as race car for the road, there have been times where between BoP and atmospheric baseline the race car itself is making a horsepower number that starts with a 3, so HP doesn't really make a race car. I've talked to a couple of the full-time race car guys who have been pretty shocked at how similar the road car feels to the IMSA/WEC cars.

 

I have about 3,000 miles in the GT at this point, so I have a reasonable handle on the car. I will say that it is a perfectly suitable road car and most of the inane whining about how brutal it is funny. Pretty sure nobody was under the impression it was a weekend hauler. It's not real harsh on decent roads. GT3 RS is much harsher to me on our local roads (which is my other favorite car on earth, and is also "slow" these days). What I would consider as "harshness" is the overall NVH in the car relative to the market, specifically sound. You hear a lot of mechanical noise that you do not hear in other cars. Loud fans, fuel system noise, various clicks and whirs, carbon stuff touching other carbon stuff. That's a positive to me. It's not a daily driver. The opposite, where it's indistinguishable from any other really fast, really competent, and otherwise boring supercar I don't particularly need to drive again would be a concern. Ford GT and some harsher Lamborghinis have a lot in common to me in that they are both the right amount of wrong.

 

I drove the Performante and GT back to back last week and it was a bit of a holy shit moment for me. The Performante is an incredible car, but my perception behind the wheel is that it is an already great road car turned up to 11. The GT is immediately, obviously, and irreversibly a race car turned into a road car. They are inherently two different types of machine. Between your ass being bolted to the floor and the extremely direct hydraulic steering, everything on the road is transmitted directly to the driver, which is what you want in a race car. But it is not fatiguing, and it's never unpredictable. I would not recommend it if your goal is creature comfort.

 

I've definitely driven faster stuff but the first time I took the car out on the track I knew I'd pretty much ruined the car. It is just fcuking beautiful to drive on a race track. It's so good and so much fun and so responsive to the driver without beating them up that it makes driving it on the street invariably a let down. It feels like a giant Radical SR3. A lot of guys will track them and the car will make them look better than they are. I know this because I bring these people to the track. On a public road, there are nicer things to drive, but I will gladly take that trade knowing what the GT is and what it represents.

 

p.s, people from here on out are toast. There's a 2 year security agreement now. No way can you be a lying dipshit and flip it. Obviously the car won't hold up at $1.8 million, but there's a whole bunch of people getting these cars that don't really give a fcuk what they're worth because they aren't for sale.

well said!

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I would never buy a car that would have a lien against it for any period of time, even is it is a month, when i paid for the car in cash . Doesn't matter who makes it, total bullshit, the manufacturers have become so arrogant ,they can hug their cars for what it is worth . We shall see how they handle the next recession.

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John Cena is still in court over the sale of his FGT, before the 2 years is up this auction sale may help his case..or not

 

Maybe. He is arguing that the final sales contract doesn't actually contain a restriction on reselling the car. Ford says it's not a party to that agreement so it doesn't wipe out the 24-month promise.

 

 

///

 

 

 

For anyone interested in the trivia of what the documents said read on:

 

When Ford picked him they sent an email that said

 

"Your opportunity to purchase this vehicle is nontransferable

and you agree to retain ownership for a

minimum of 24 months after delivery and not to re-sell

the vehicle within this period of time. The new Ford GT

can only be purchased through a Ford GT Selling Dealer."

 

And then when he spec'd the car he got an order confirmation from Ford that said:

 

"By signing this Order Confirmation Form you are

verifying the following:

A) The specifications above accurately represent your

Ford GT order.

B) You understand that being selected for the opportunity

to purchase this vehicle is non-transferable and agree

not to sell the vehicle within the first 24 months of

delivery. All vehicles must be purchased through a

U.S. Ford dealer. "

 

And then he had to sign an affidavit of eligibility which sets the stage for his argument that the final sales contract didn't prohibit resale:

 

ales of the GT will be made by Ford dealers,”

 

"The purchase price and all other terms of sale will be

determined by the seller in accordance with such terms

and processes as the seller may establish."

 

"Each seller of a GT will have the right to condition the

sale on the purchaser’s agreement to restrictions on resale

or transfer of the GT or to a right of the seller to

repurchase the GT within specified time periods, to the

extent such restrictions or requirements are permitted

under applicable law. "

 

"6. Sales of the GT. I understand and acknowledge that …

(e) the terms of any purchase are subject to mutual

agreement by the seller and the purchaser. "

 

 

So the dealer is the actual seller, according to Cena, and that contract says:

 

"This Order and Agreement represents the final

agreement between the parties related to the sale of the

vehicle and may not be contradicted by evidence of prior,

contemporaneous, or subsequent oral agreement of the

parties."

 

He claims this clause wipes out all the 24 month stuff Ford said in its emails and order confirmations etc. If it isn't in the dealer contract then it's not part of the sale.

 

 

Ford's answer to all this is that there are two agreements: one agreement between Ford and Cena agreeing he won't sell for 24 months, and a second agreement between him and the dealer actually selling the vehicle. Ford says it isn't a party to the second agreement so that "final agreement" clause doesn't apply to Ford and Cena is still bound by his 24 month promise.

 

Ford also sued the broker he sold it to.

 

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I agree with Ford. I don't see Ford as party to the final sale.

 

However, even if they were party to the final sale, the language of the final contract reads as such that the final sale cannot be contradicted by previous agreements. In order for something to be contradictory, there must be two statements made.

 

For example, if the final sales contract actually said "You can sell this whenever you want," then the previous agreement would be in contradiction and void. However, if the final sales agreement says nothing of the sort, then nothing is in contradiction. You don't have to restate terms of previous agreements in future agreements. The original agreement says you won't sell it for 2 years. The second agreement doesn't have to restate that.

 

By not including contradictory statements I would think that Ford intended to retain the rights of previous agreements.

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I hear ya on principal but in reality, I am down for a NFGT, ThethetheFerrari, et al with liens at MSRP. Sign me up.

 

Same for me.

 

I'd prefer though that companies just made as many cars as they had buyers and that nothing was limited, or just sell them to the highest bidders to begin with. I have little interest in the kind of rarity that exists in the modern exotic car market. The > $300,000 price tag is more than enough to ensure the car is rare by most standards. Well, rare enough for my at least. There are plenty of old cars worth many, many millions for those people who cannot stand the idea of other people having the same nice things as them.

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I hear ya on principal but in reality, I am down for a NFGT, ThethetheFerrari, et al with liens at MSRP. Sign me up.

 

By the time you buy and sell 10 shit Ferrari's and take a beating on them to qualify for the special Ferrari's , you're better off just paying a premium and buying on the secondary market . If one can afford 3 mill for a car , they can afford 5

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By the time you buy and sell 10 shit Ferrari's and take a beating on them to qualify for the special Ferrari's , you're better off just paying a premium and buying on the secondary market . If one can afford 3 mill for a car , they can afford 5

 

So very true! I would never jump through hoops for any product, it’s not life saving surgery it’s just a car and if your sole purpose is to buy one because you want to make money on you are doing it wrong.

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