GR-1, Possible replica?

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Could this car ever be built as a production based car????? The simple answer is yes, you’re only limited by time and money. A prime example is the Ellison – Kirkham Cobra.

The real question comes down to economics and the business case to actually build it. The other part of the equation is the bastardization that would be needed to make the car legal to meet FMVSS and CARB standards for a 2014 – 2016 model year (assuming you could even get it done that quickly)

The Ford GT program was between $125 – 150MM in development costs. This was an all out effort by Ford bringing the best of the best in terms of design engineers, manufacturing guys, and management together to make it happen in 24 months (plus the head start that was laid down in the 6-8+ years on the Petunia program leading up to it). Bill Ford gave the team unlimited resources and a free pass to do what it would take to make the program happen in order to meet the centennial anniversary. This included amnesty from many of the bureaucratic Ford processes and also from the mainstream product development management who didn’t understand the purpose or need for the Ford GT program.

To produce a production version of the GR-1 today would most likely take double or triple the resources (in both manpower and $$$) due to the more stringent crash and emissions regulations. This was one of the reasons the Ford GT never was produced beyond 2006. The bumper and seating/airbag requirements made further production of the car not financially feasible and would have drastically altered the appearance of the front and rear of the car. In looking at the body lines of the GR-1 it most likely would be even more of a challenge. A typical new car development program for a high volume vehicle is between $750MM - $2BB depending on the scope of the program and how much can carry over from previous generations of models. Even a low volume vehicle, like a SVT product that is based off an existing product line can cost $50-100MM. Trying to amortize the engineering costs along with the material and labor costs into a $30K vehicle just doesn’t work out financially. Without a compelling reason (like the 100th anniversary of Ford Motor Company) it just doesn’t make business sense to produce a vehicle like this as a main stream application.

With all of that said it would still be nice for someone like the Kirkhams to approach Ford/Shelby in attempting to make this vehicle on a low volume “kit” type of roller to avoid the crash/emissions standards. The CAD files exist for this vehicle. All it would take is getting the right people at Ford and Shelby to agree to this. That in itself would most likely prove to be more of a challenge than actually building the car.