2017 Ford GT - Jay Leno's Garage

welcome to Jay Leno's

garage

episode today, the car, the

2017

Ford GT. I've had this for about a week and I've put about a thousand miles on it and it's pretty amazing and we'll get into the whole car in just a Second, I want to show you guys that I have to stop by to get one of these. You know, all the money I saved on clothes I was able to buy this car and it was a substantial savings, believe me, I'm sure you all heard it. the process you have to complete a complete deal and which I think was good because what happens when cars like this come out, speculators come in and buy the car and then they flip it and if I was a manufacturer and I put my heart and soul into a car I wouldn't like to see any scalpers buy it and then flip it to complete this whole program how do you plan to use the car?

What other collector cars do you have? How many miles do you drive? You know, I did all that and was able to get one of these because I have a 2005 Ford GT that has the same serial number as this number 12, so it worked out pretty well now that you did that whole thing. where you fill out the form, then they send you this box now this box is uh it's kind of cool, look, I love all this kind of stuff, okay, first you have a box in a box, okay, okay, now this is what they call. this, this configuration agreement, you see it and it has all these things here, you take all this out of here, here we go and then inside the box is this thing, then you remove this, you open, up, you go, what could it be?

This helps you configure. your car is fine, so you open this deal here, okay, then this slides in and then this slides out. I know this is a whole, it's very important, okay, but this helps you choose the colors and what you want in your car. These are interior colors. and these are, well, these are the interior colors, here I have the orange, as you can see, black with orange stripes, uh, and these are the different wheels, these are the titanium wheels, there are not many options with this car that I have just bought. about all the options, titanium wheels, the stripes, I didn't buy the exhaust system, the titanium exhaust system because it doesn't really sound any different, you don't really see it and it's only 10 pounds different, plus it's $10,000 more and I know that for 10 grand I can lose 10 pounds, but that's basically what you get, but it's fun, you have all the different colors available in the car, I chose the black with orange just because I like black with orange, uh, silver .

Well, anyway, this is the entire setup agreement here. The other cool thing they do is send you pictures of your car being built now, although Henry Ford did, he didn't invent the assembly line, but he certainly made the assembly line popular for this car. It couldn't be further from the assembly line because each one is sorted individually, but hey, here are some photos of it, as you can see the car is assembled in what appears to be a Hos, a car hospital, everything is clean. done in a clean room, it's really cool, then they send you all this stuff about what options your car had here, it's here, make the owner blah blah blah blah, and you know, patches and quests and all that stuff kind of stuff, but that's just some of the stuff you get and of course it takes a little bit of time to get one of these because they're all assembled by hand.

I don't think you'll make much money with these cars. I think this is what you call a halo. automobile in the sense that it brings an enormous amount of prestige in the press to a company like Ford Motor Company. What I like most about this car is that it is still a Ford, as manufacturers often know it when they make everyday cars, trucks, and minivans. and all that kind of stuff and they get more sophisticated, they change the name from Honda and it becomes Acura. Toyota becomes Lexus. I love the fact that Ford, even though it's a half-million dollar car, they didn't trade it in for the Ford, you know? fancy name, they kept it as Ford and I like that, I think that's cool and this car is as far away as possible from the first generation, uh 4D GT, because the first 4D GT was a road car built for It looks like a race car.

This is an absolute race car, built to perform well or modified to be so. I guess it's a road car. It reminds me a lot of my McLaren F1 because the mclarenf1 was a road car that you could literally have driven to L. Lal won the race and came back and this is pretty much the same thing: it has all the features of the race car with actually more horsepower because the car had to be detuned for Lama, now it's a big sticking point with this car with a lot of people. Those who have never driven it and don't know anything about it is the fact that it has a V6 again.

I applaud Ford for trying something different. Everyone thinks it needs a V8 or a 312 V, but they know this car is really all about the chassis. It's about aerodynamics, it's about handling. I think it has the best chassis and you know, I'm not a racing driver, I don't know, but of any car I've ever driven, I mean, it's incredible on the track. That's why the car won. Know? There are a lot of high-end Italian and German exotics out there and some of them are two or three times the price of this thing, but they haven't won, Lama, and if you think about winning.

Lama is easy, it's not, so that's what makes it cool, in fact my license plate says "Lal", uh, I put that in there, oh, and how cool is this Ford that he actually left in my

garage

, the 2016 Lemon-winning Ford GT, this one. it's the real car that won the race it still has the original dirt and everything on it no one has washed it no one has touched it and it was a real honor to have it here aerodynamics is what this car is all about and makes it strikingly beautiful, I mean, I think it's a good-looking supercar and I think it's truly a supercar.

I think it fits in with McLaren, Pagani and Ferrari, you know, some people might debate that because it has a Ford on the nose, but I like it. that I like the fact that they did it that way um it's a pretty amazing car it has my favorite michelin tires uh this car drives really like no other uh the V6 engine is the most powerful I think V6 engine ever produced at least until up to this point, 647 horsepower is a V6 to make it more compact and is based on the F-150 truck engine. I guess so, but who cares.

I'm sure there are probably more sophisticated engines out there, although it's a twin turbo V6 with four valves and cams, that's pretty exotic, although it's not the most exotic engine, but one thing it is, for sure, is the chassis most exotic and the most exotic use of aerodynamics. You have several modes. wet, you have sport, you have track and you have Vmax with Vmax in general. I think the wing goes down and that helps you reach the top speed of 216 miles per hour. There aren't many cars that can go 216 miles per hour. uh most of them are limited to probably a little over 200 uh, but just the fact that you can do it and do it with a V6 is pretty amazing.

The car weighs a little over 3,000 lbs, maybe 302 with all the fluids and everything in it. that makes it uh makes it quite exotic um I've been reading reviews and road tests and people are doing well, it's a little loud well, it's a oh shut up, it's a race car for the street, you know, it gives you a real feeling of occasion. I mean, I have an NSX and I really like my NSX and the NSX is built like a supercar that you can drive every day, you can drive this every day, but I don't drive it every day because to me it's a little bit like champagne. , you know, a couple times a month, once a week, you take it out, you have fun with it and then you put it back in because it feels like a race car, it drives like a race car, it handles like a racing car, but that's it.

That said, I find the seats more comfortable than those in my McLaren P1, which seemed a little restrictive. You sit very close together, I mean, you're almost touching your passenger's shoulders because the idea is to place the most weight in the center. the car as good as it can be, it's a perfectly balanced car, it's a wonderful handling car and, you know, a lot of people get angry because, well, I see some of Ford's B-pieces here, well, to me that's a advantage because when you buy an exotic car, especially from a small manufacturer, perhaps European. I think Bluetooth satellite navigation never works as well as it does from a manufacturer that has made billions of these units and puts them in everything from SUVs to rental cars to satellite navigation.

The Bluetooth, the radio, they all work perfectly and that's what I like, it's a system I'm familiar with and it works right now. The really interesting feature of this car and I think what makes it really interesting is the fact that the lift is hydraulic. You know, when you have a lot of exotic supercars and you pull into a driveway or a raised area, you don't want to break that divider and you press that button, you hear you feel the compressor and you have to wait a minute and it kind of boosts it, you know, In fact, my P1 does that, you probably have about 30 seconds, you have to hold that button down to raise the front, it literally hits, jumps right away, which is nice. great because I have never scraped myself.

I have a terrible driveway at home it's like that and I ripped the splitter off my 350 arm Mustang while with this I press the button it comes up and I never got scratched. 2 and then you go into follow mode on this thing which is really cool and very similar to the McLaren P1 literally boom it just falls out it's like you pull the jacks out from under the car and everything falls out and I explain how that works in a moment. The funniest thing about this car is the trunk. The trunk is hilarious. I wouldn't call it a glove compartment because you can only fit one glove in there.

Well, let me show you what I do. I'm talking, I'm going to show you the trunk, okay, this is your whole trunk here and you have your Ford battery charger and you have all kinds of little bags in here with all kinds of things. I love all the little things they give. You, that's your battery charger and this is a tire inflator. I have never had a tire inflator that works. You know, they give you that thing and you plug in the cigarette like you have a big hole in the side wall. It will not work. but anyway, if you and your wife go on a trip, maybe you can put a pair of panties in here and that's all you'll have, and if you go on a trip and your wife finds a pair of panties in here, make sure Make sure they are hers or you will lose half the car.

Well, that's how you check the oil. This is the most fun part of the car for me because you always check the oil when it's hot. Okay, let me check the oil. because that gets hot, that's very hot, but that's okay, that's, uh, I think the four GT owners will have the mark of shame, much like the Heidleberg scar that was popular during the first world war, this will show on the burned hand when checking the oil. If you are a real enthusiast, since you can see the titanium exhaust, you can't really see it anyway, so there is no reason to buy it.

I like the fact that you can even get to the engine of this car, many supercars now everything is sealed. I can't even touch it so on this car the aerodynamics came first and I think the design came second but the aerodynamics dictated the design and you know nature is quite attractive so you have this EB and it flows here like all the The wind goes through as the air goes through this thing that you're driving, it's pretty amazing and it's really like a vacuum cleaner. You know, you pick up stones and feel them run through the chassis as they are absorbed by the speed.

This thing is a lot of fun to drive, it's a really dramatic experience and we'll take it out in just a minute, as you can see, it's a wide car from the back. I haven't really tried parallel parking. I love this thing the way you see, the taillights are also used to vent air. This is really a chassis car. You know, there are some cars that have engines. I think, like the Chrysler Hellcat, that's what it's all about. that big 707 horsepower engine this has to do with the Chassy this is what really this is where the science went this is where the engineering went and the engine is really good and you know, it's interesting, it's an oil change from 14 qu on this thing right 13.7 something like that, I just did the first oil change here, which I like, a lot of oil keeps it cool, a lot of stuff flowing, I mean I'm always drawn to it when I buy these cars that have five qut , it always seems that way.

It's never enough, I haven't had any problems with it in the first thousand miles, everything works, everything is fine, all the electronics work, you know, compared to many other supercars, especially hybrids, it seems surprisingly simple, but it is , it's not. It's a complicated car, but in the same way it's a simple car, it's curved, it's built specifically to do one task and that's handling and driving fast and that's really what it does and I think it still looks like a 4D GT. like the evolutionary styling, you know, when the 2005 one came out, I thought it was just amazing because it closely mimicked the 1966 car, whereas this is a slimmer, better version of the 1966 car.2005.

I mean, it really looks like the next generation of the Ford GT. I can't imagine what the next generation will be like, but I'm not going to worry about that now. I have the carbon fiber wheels. I've told this story.Before, several years ago, the Australian company Carbon Revolution came here with some carbon fiber wheels and the wheels were $20,000 each and they were hoping to sell them to high-end Porsche and Lamborghini guys. Fry Guys stuff like that and they told me we're working with an OEM and they didn't tell me who it was. Turns out it was Ford so they managed to get these wheels on the Ford GT the 350r and now they are available on this car I also have titanium lug nuts they only weigh a couple of ounces each the brakes are amazing the carbon brakes are from carbon fiber or carbon brakes, I don't remember which ones, but they're amazing, I mean. incredible stopping power with this car the car still has enough visceral feel it's not like it's all done for you I mean a lot of it is done for you it has a seven speed dual clutch transmission that works pretty perfectly it's been very very This It's been hot here in LA this week, over 100° and I've been misting in the hills and it never gets above normal.

It seems to work fine, it doesn't. Bing Bing, you know when you sometimes turn off these supers? Cars are so hot you feel all the metal and stuff. Contrasting it, no, I don't understand any of that with this. I mean, it's pretty amazing. Kind of an interesting feature of the car. You can lock it using this small window. Up here you see it's locked and then you press the red padlock and it locks it. Hey, let's take a look inside, as you can see, it's a little tricky to get into. Put your butt first and then slide. around but actually quite comfortable uh the seats are fixed the seats don't move you pull the DRP here and the pedals go forward or backward everything is on the steering wheel, which is the exact opposite of McLaren um I prefer the stems outside but here you have turn signal here left and right and you know you have cruise c why you have cruise control on this I have no idea about radio settings all that kind of stuff you have your screen with your backrest here uh this is Park the unit neutral in reverse, you put it and you have these.

I think they look cool the way they're cut here, the paddle shifters, um, this is very basic, the air conditioning controls, which I like, I turn it on. I turn it off, you know, the only thing that drives me crazy about the N NSX is that the controls are too complicated. I don't like the ones where I have to go to a screen and then press swipe up and swipe down because I'm taking my eyes off the road this thing just reaches out and you do this and it's okay, there's the home button, let me show you how this feature works, let me turn it on now, look at this, look, the car goes up, it's going good. down again, it's not a quiet car, but any stretch of the imagination and uh, it probably gets a little loud when you're in it, but that's what this car is built for, it's a race car, it's not designed to have a mode quiet and makes it a lot of fun to drive you know uh I don't know why anyone would drive a car like this every day you don't want to sit in traffic with it although again I find it more comfortable I mean these seats are a a little wider, a little more comfortable than the weird standard racing seat I find in most cars, you know, I got them from my 4D GT.

I changed the seat on my P1 McLaren just because it was too uncomfortable, the seat also moves. back you can adjust the angle there, so there's plenty of room for me. I'm more than comfortable in this car and you can see it's unfinished, unlacquered carbon fiber, um, it's all pretty basic, which is what I like. I like orange, it breaks it up. Go up a little bit and you have courtesy lights and the usual stuff, you know? I laugh at myself when I read some of the road tests. People are not comfortable enough. It's not a GT car, it's a racing car.

It's the car. that won Lama. I mean, people have no idea how hard it is to do. I mean, Ford hadn't been at Lama for 50 years, they had basically a year and a half to put this program together, they built a car and they beat the best in the world. Had to offer Ferrari Porche Lamborghini Audi. I mean, it was a pretty amazing achievement and they did it on the 50th anniversary. They said they were going to do it, which put a lot of pressure on it and I think that makes the car quite special. In fact, it makes it really special.

In fact, let's take it for a spin and I'll show you what we're talking about. I'll start the car and before I go for a spin I'll put it in track mode to You can see what that's like so it literally drops what 2 on the dash Change everything changes uh dash they still call it dash a screen I guess you call it uh but pretty amazing uh before you had incredible downforce now you have incredible downforce but The track is a little low for especially the streets of Los Angeles so let's turn it up again, turn it back up and we're ready to go for a ride , you know, it's a pretty comfortable car, in fact, it's quite comfortable. uh, I've read some things online about people saying, oh, this seat should be more luxurious, whatever it is, it's a race car, if you bought a 427 Cobra in 1967, believe me, it would be a lot tougher than this, but you have antiock. you've got traction control, you've got all that kind of stuff, uh and like I said, the most amazing chassis that's ever been put on a modern car, the mirrors are good, the rear view is pretty good, especially when the wing goes down when you go from Track Mode, it goes back to normal sport mode, the wing won't go down unless you go over, I think, 35 to 40 mph and you've got the controls here, you can go from track to sport to wet, you know, whatever.

You really can't imagine. Driving this in the rain too much, but I guess it happens. I remember when this car debuted at the auto show. The NSX debuted at the same auto show in Detroit, but no one knew this was coming. There was no idea that there were no leaked photos. I know one of the most annoying things to me is when manufacturers leak a photo of a car that hasn't even been built yet and act like it's coming out in a matter of weeks, you know, while this was developed in complete secrecy. . the car was finished and then they unveiled at the auto show what it was, uh 2015, I think maybe and, oh my gosh, it just caused such a sensation because it really is a beautiful car, as well as being, you know, a car successful racing.

It is really in an attractive shape. I haven't seen anything recently in Italy or Germany that's come out. I think it looks as good as this once again. I love this feature. You press the button, the car lowers, presses and raises the front end. I end up every time I feel a pothole or a railroad track, I hit it and hit it, it appears instantly and you never scrape it and in a thousand miles I haven't scraped a splitter on this thing at all, I mean I ripped it off my Mustang. You have two modes: you can go straight to manual and use the gearbox as you would with a manual gearbox.

The boxes shift manually when you shift or you can put an automatic where it will shift obviously automatically or you can use manual and automatic as well at the same time it takes a while to get used to the controls. I'm used to having a cylinder head, you push it up or down, he has buttons to go left or right and, you know, you have headlight flashes, windshield washers, everything here. You know, you can feel how arody the car's dam is. You take it to 60 or 70 and take your foot off the gas and it cuts the air so cleanly.

You know it's amazing how many cars there are, especially obviously with trucks and all that. you take your foot off the accelerator at 60 and wow, it acts like a windbreaker where this thing literally cuts through the air like a knife, it's, yes, it's a wonderful car and you have a comfort mode here, but I can't tell the difference. I just leave it in sport mode and that's what I like. I like a nice, firm ride. It tells me exactly what the car is doing and I'm the first to admit that I'm not good enough to make this car work. what it does, but if you're a good driver it makes you a good driver and if you're a good driver it makes you an excellent driver and if you're an excellent driver it will probably make you a racing driver and it just works and you have a series of lights here on the SP on the steering wheel that will let you know when you reach the Red Line, it will turn green, red, then blue and then boom, you will change gears.

What I like most about this car is the build quality, power, handling, it rivals anything from Europe anywhere and I still hate to keep saying it in Lama won. I mean, it's very difficult to beat Lal, every manufacturer wants to beat Ferrari for Audi and many of them have done it, but Ford has been there twice. once 50 years ago when they won and came back 50 years later and again that's pretty impressive and I can't imagine how much pressure it must have put on Raj and the guys on the team because you say you're going to Lamar and if you don't win, oh my gosh, They'll beat you up, well they did and the case was closed and here you have a complete Ro roll cage that meets all the racing certifications and all that, so hey, It's a little tricky to get into, but I'll take it for the security factor.

You know, Ford originally intended to go to the L mall with some kind of modified Mustang and they started that project and said no, let's just do a total run. car and I think the reason they were able to build this car was because of the success of the 2005 4D GT and obviously this car is not cheap, it costs around half a million dollars. I think it's safe to say there's a lot more than that in development, this is the kind of car that, if you sell thousands of them, maybe you'll break even on the technology, the engineering, the workmanship and all the experimentation. necessary to make it what it is and again it has it. that halo effect throughout the Ford line, if you build one car and then win them all, you're probably pretty good at building SUVs and trucks and everything else too, and I think there's a certain amount of national pride involved in all of them if you're a Car enthusiast, likes to see the car from his home country succeed.

I was like that when Chevrolet raced in lamal and they do an amazing job, and that's why I'm happy for Ford or any American company that does well in the world theater like that, I guess they're only making 250 cars a year , like I said, this is one of the first. I earned the same serial numbers on my 2005 and got #12, so it has the same number. par, which is kind of funny, but you know, when I came out of this in 2005, it seems like a long time ago, even though it's only 12 years or so. I really like this engine.

I like the torque characteristics. I have a lot of torque, a lot of power at low revs. I mean, if you didn't know it was a V6, you'd think it was a V8. You know, it's very funny, we now live in an era when it is more fashionable to tear down everything than to applaud. achievements, you know, I mean, when I read the comments, people hate this car for theirs, they don't like this feature, they don't like that feature, yes please, you started from scratch in two years, you took the car to Lal and you ran the and won the toughest and most grueling race in the world, that should just be thank you, closed topic, but ultimately it all comes down to how the car makes you feel and this makes you feel great when you drive it.

I mean, I know exactly where. the front wheels I can feel the lightness of the car I have a lot of leg room the seat goes back so I'm comfortable uh it's firm it's direct the steering is perfect it's really good isn't it, you don't know many people I have these steering racks electrics that are a little bit weird, everything is hydraulic and it's just a wonderful car, it really is, you know, it's fun with this carbon fiber tub, you hear every rock that the tire picks up, you hear it fly through the chassis underneath and being exhausted in the rear and ground clearance are pretty good, as I said before.

I've put 1,000 miles on this thing in about a week and I've yet to scrape anything. I put my first paint chip on it when Little Rock H, this water, okay. I'm so glad I put that film over the paint on the front, it saves you from stone chips there. I also put it on the windshield, oh that's another thing, this windshield is made with that. They call it gorilla glass, you know, very thin, very strong and most importantly, very light, okay, all your controls are here on the steering wheel, if you notice that this is the windshield wiper up here, uh, these are the lights turn signals, right there, this is the driving mode. right now I'm in the sport you have track you have uh normal you're wet you have um Vmax uh you can't get on the track while you're moving you have to stop to get on a track for that windshield washer here uh left turn signal turn signal to the right um, this is your uh cruise control uh, this is whatyou know to talk to your timing system, navigation, whatever it is, that's the volume of your OK button to change the radio station on the radio and as you can see, the dashboard changed depending on the mode. you're in, if I go to normal look, okay, it increases the miles per hour there and it drives a little smoother, you go back to Sport and your gear selection becomes the most important and you have the tire pressure there and you can scroll for a lot of things there.

I love these paddles here, kind of cool, elegantly made, the way they're uh like cupped or notched, the horn is right in the center, uh, one thing that American supercars always have better than anyone else. it's air conditioning and heating, I mean just touch the air conditioning, this thing freezes in a minute when I bought my McLaren F1, it came with air conditioning, but if you wanted good air conditioning, it was like a 25 or 30,000 dollar option and normal air conditioning was like you. be like a snowman blowing on you for 2 minutes, you had to get something that was above freezing, you had to use the, you had to get good air conditioning, which is funny, you see, it's a navigation system Standard Ford and all that. which is fine, they work great for me, you know what?

I was surprised that most modern supercars, especially carbon fiber superstock ones, don't have the AM radio button. I usually listen to news and weather information, so I turn it on. I am and most supercars like the NSX like the P1 McLaren. I don't know if it's because it's a full carbon chassis and they can't get good terrain, but for some reason they don't have the am, so I'm grateful. for that I like that and here these are the standard temperature fan speed and all the usual stuff like that, here's the power button, the engine is on and off and you have reverse gear in park, just turn it wherever you want, you have a kind of glove box. it's right here under the seat there's a little area there that's very useful for carrying the U insurance documents that you'll need to carry if you have this.

I already found out that you have to have those insurance documents right there. The good thing is that you have this tachometer built in here. Look when you turn it red. I hope you enjoyed this look at the new Ford GT. I'm pretty impressed with it, the only feature we don't really use today is, well. I used a couple of them is launch control. I really don't like launch control. I always feel like I'm testing the transmission system. I prefer a rolling start, you know, put it in first gear and then nail it, that's what I don't like to just start and, you know, change everything with launch control.

I don't use it on any of the cars, but I'm very impressed with this. This thing is truly amazing and made in America. He does it great and once again one of them goes down in the history books. uh stay tuned we have another video right after this one that will show you how you apply that U shaped plastic film to the front of your car to prevent chipping and you can put it on anything you know Ford Focus Camaro anything and what you want Mustang whatever and it's cool too so thanks for looking I hope you like this little ride I hope it gives you an idea of ​​what it's like to own one of these instead of just getting in and driving it, it's a very nice experience, I mean, it's a great handling car, it's a lot of fun and I hope you like it as much as I do. you next week to