The new Ford GT has a lot to live up to, says Alistair Weaver in The Sunday Times. The supercar's ancestor, the GT40, humbled Ferrari at Le Mans in 1966 and won again in 1967, 1968 and 1969. The new model has been setting Le Mans alight all over again, winning its class in 2016 in the 24 Hours race, and it's been winning races again this year. Now, it has been tamed for the road. I say "tamed", says Weaver, but really this is no ordinary supercar. It's still very much a racing car, which makes it quite unlike anything else on sale today."It's noisy, brutal, visceral, impractical, beautiful and thoroughly intoxicating."
Practical it is not, agrees Andrew English in The Daily Telegraph. Even getting into the thing is a challenge: bum in first, swing your legs round, but still your shirt rides up, and if you are over six feet tall you'll bang your head on the roof lining. But once you're in, and fire up the 3.5-litre V6 engine sitting right behind you, you know that "an appointment with a GT is a very special occasion".
The interior is "barer than a Brighton naturists' beach", but there's an artistry to it: the satin carbon fibre is not trim but part of the car's structure, and components such as hinges, brackets and braces are left uncovered. The seats though are comfy, and to drive the car is as well mannered as you could ever expect a mid-engined racing car to be.
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It has a "responsive but decidedly old-school handling dynamic", says Basem Wasef in Wired. The GT relies on the driver rather than fancy new technology and it takes discipline and skill to nail the driving technique. But once you've got it, "navigating a corner just right delivers a sense of accomplishment harder to find in more helpful cars".
Even on the street, the GT makes virtually every other vehicle feel stodgy and pedestrian, and the drama of driving it transforms every traffic light into a starting grid and every parking spot into a pit stop. The only tragedy, says English, is that even if you have the required £450,000, you've still only got a one in a thousand chance of getting hold of the last 250, which go on sale next year.
Price: from £420,000Engine: 3,497cc, V6 twin-turbo petrolPower: 647bhp at 6,250rpmPower: 550lb ft at 5,900rpmTop speed: 216mph0-60mph: under three seconds
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