Dumb move by Ford

I opened the So. Bend Tribune (our local rag that usally has the news 2 or 3 days behind uless it's a baseball or football game) and to my amazement the Ford Motor Co. had a 100th Anniversary display for dealers only. Included was the Red Ford GT concept car. To Quote the staff writer," The Ford GT concept - which will be produced in limited quantities in 2004- drew quite a few whistles from those gathering around the sleek, bright red car."
Why not show the whole comunity or anyone who wants to see it?
Me-thinks, some one dropped the ball!

VIC
CAV#51
Lemans Blue
Owner built 302
Getrag trans

 

Well I think you have to ask yourself why Ford had a dealers only showing. If you want to buy a new Ford GT you don't drive to Dearborn and just pick one up. You get one through a dealership. You either plunk down a down payment and the dealership orders a car for you and then you wait for it to come in or you pick one off the dealers lot. How many dealers are going to order a new Ford GT without a buyer already in line? I have no idea what the dealer cost of a new Ford GT is going to be, but if you were the owner of a dealership that didn't have a customer waiting for the car do you think a dealer wants to tie up $100,000 in a single car just to have it sit around? You and I know all about the new Ford GT and we all know about the original Ford GT. What does the average salesman really know about the new Ford GT? Not half as much as we do most likely. My guess is that this meeting was a pep talk and a coaching secession for the salesmen and owners in your area to get them up to speed on what is what on the car and to spur some dealer orders. The new Ford GT is going to draw a lot of show room traffic for any dealer that sits one on their show room floor, but at what risk to the dealership? The smart dealerships will jump at the chance get a new Ford GT, but I'll bet a lot of them are taking a wait and see attitude at this point. $100,000 (my guess at the dealer cost price) is a lot for any dealership to invest into just one car, show room traffic or no showroom traffic. But the car is not available to the public yet and they haven't announced the exact date of that yet. Where do you think Ford should have displayed the car for the public? At a dealership and if so which one? Whatever dealership the car could have been shown at, there would have been many others dealerships that would have been slighted. Since the car is not ready to go to the public anytime soon, it is not time to pump up the public just yet. The time for that is still in the future yet. I also guess a lot of dealers are hurting over poor T-Bird sales. A lot of dealers had T-Birds they couldn't sell. Maybe it is their own fault sinced many tried to mark them up too high. But that is a different issue. The other reason I'm guessing that the car wasn't shown to the public is that there are darn few of them right now. This car probably is on tour to a lot of dealerships around the country and there is really a tight schedule for it to be taken around place to place. Then the last thing to consider is they probably didn't want everyone to see it because too many guys would drool on it too much!!!

 

[Steve Toner]

There was a car show at Utah Valley State College in Orem, UT last Saturday (May 17th), and they had the red one there for anybody to see. I missed it, but a friend of mine picked up a poster and a couple of "I'd rather be driving a Ford GT" bumper stickers for me...

 

[Brett James-McCall]

Guys,
Slightly off topic, but when FMC did the Racing Puma over here in Europe, the car was only available fromcertain dealers. Generally ones that were Motorsport badged. Might be the same over there?

 

Bigred- Dealers need some kind of schooling. I remember when I was dischared from the Navy and went down to the local Ford show room to lok at a 289 Cobra. The salesman actually tried to dicouage me from buying the car. His words were, " it's loud and noisy and it doesn't even have roll up windows". He wanted me in a Thunderbird. I guess that was where the real commission was. I ended up buying a new Corvette. (Worst car I ever owned.) I saw the guy few years ago at my wifes class reunion and he said," you know we should have bought a couple of them and put em aside. No, I didn't deck him.

Vic

 

Manufacturers do many dealer activities like this to get them to sign-up for various programs. Be sure that if a dealer gets a GT, he's got to take other harder-to-sell items.

You know, I don't own my kit (yet), but I hate the notion of these yo-yo's who never heard of the GT40 who are now going to become 'experts', and will tell us all about how the car won Indy, et al.

BTW, any chance that the new GT transaxle will fit existing kits(?).

 

The trans in the new GT is HUGE. It looks to be longer than the engine amd maybe 10-12 inches longer than the Audi Getrag unit. I have some good pics from the Chicago Auto Show, but I still don't have this picture posting thing figured out.
Vic