I saw several commercials for the new ford GT during the superbowl, and wondered if it was a very good marketing strategy for ford. The GT i believe is a car that will cost more than $100,000. I have a feeling that most of the people who watch the superbowl cannot afford this car, and the people that can probably already test drove it. Why would ford spend so much money to advertise a car that a majority of viewers cannot afford?
To make those of us who wish they could afford one salivate of course.
Maybe they want to change their image into one of a luxury car manufacturer, and not just pickup trucks for farmers and the like. Since the Super Bowl is watched by bazillions, tonight would have been a good time to advertise an obscenely expensive vehicle.
Also might be a way to get people into the dealership. I didn’t see the commercial - does it mention the price?
If not, it might make people stroll on into their local Ford dealership and then realize the price, but the dealer can talk them into a more affordable Mustang.
And it’s a car that’ll have status, since everyone is talking about it.
Though personally, my reaction was, “Nice car. But it’s still a Ford.”
The GT is the Plymouth Prowler of Ford. They aren’t selling it to make money. They’re selling it so they have a really cool Ford to sell.
My BIL, who seems generally to know about such things, said it was $153,000.
At that price, they’re doing more image enhancement than car selling.
i figured as much. the price i got was from another show on cars. I wouldn’t mind owning one of those gt’s. Why aren’t they calling the car the GT-40? Every year they come out with the ford taurus, why change the name?
Ford does not own the rights to the GT40 name. I don’t know the details, but it would have cost them a significant amount of money to use the name.
I’ve never liked a single Ford I’ve ever been in myself, but I’d give the GT a test drive. 
I certainly can appreciate the history behind the name. The LeMans winning GT40’s were probably the prettiest race cars to be built on this side of the Atlantic.
I think their reasoning on the name is thus: the GT is a “production” version of the GT40, which was a purpose-built race car.
Either that, or they were afraid people would come into the dealship and ask for the GT10, GT20, or GT30 instead.
It’s all to lure people into the showrooms. What’s the current tagline: “Have you looked at a Ford lately?”? or “Look Again” or something like that. The consumer gets impressed by something, then ends up buying something else. That’s one of the reasons for the old loss leader, you know, fall in love with a SunFire now, end up buying a Bonneville next time around when you’re not a broke-ass (their opinion; not mine). This just works in reverse.
I tried googling for Superbowl demographics, but a quick search yielded mostly gambling sites! Still, though, my undocumented gut feeling is that Superbowl fans aren’t just the Joe six-packs in the United States. And even if we’re not just limiting ourselves to “The Rich,” how many $30,000 per year people do you see running around in $30,000 Explorers? Quite a few, I’d say. If you want something bad enough, you do it, even if it’s at the expense of something more important. So I guess I’m saying, there are probably a good number of middle class people that really can afford to blow that kind of money on a car if they struggle for it, even though it may not be a wise idea.
Oh, and the Taurus is being discontinued. It’s being replaced with the “Ford 500” and the “Ford Futura” which will be absolutely awesome (compared to Taurus), Mazda6 based models. These are super-important vehicles that nicely fill out what is a very well-rounded product lineup from Ford. I think they could do a little more badge engineering a la GM, but they will have great vehicles in every corner of the market. Too bad these will be 2006 model year vehicles. What they will do, though, is lure a significant number of “too bad it’s a Ford” back into Ford showrooms. Come to think of it, they’re really only be missing a new front-drive Lincoln.
Smackfu is right on-target. The GT is Bill Ford’s in-your-face declaration that Ford is coming back. No better way to do it than with an appeal to the old-time muscle car.
The slogan for the GT is “The Pace Car for an entire company.” It’s more about rallying the troops within Ford, and polishing the corporate image, than with selling the model.
From the Ford website: “It’s the ‘pace car for an entire company’ because it’s a showcase for Ford’s design, engineering and manufacturing capabilities.” It’s a great big corporate yee-haa! from a bunch of “real” car guys.
Why don’t they call it the GT 40?
Because Ford let whatever right to the term “GT40” lapse. The name was picked up by a company called Safir GT40 Parts, which supplied and rebuilt parts for the original GT40, and they now legally hold the name.
When Ford approached SGP about leasing the name from the parts company, they gladly offered to sell it back to Ford for roughly $40 million, depending on whom you ask.
Ford felt that this was unacceptable, and after negotiations failed, they cleverly dropped the “40,” making it the plain-old, Ferrari-stomping GT.
My understanding is that, believe it or not, some car collector somewhere actually registered the trademark for GT40 about 15 years ago. He’s a mad GT40 collector enthusiast, and when he discovered that the name GT40 had not been trademarked by Ford in the 1960’s (big mistake… big, BIG mistake) well, this guy applied for, and won, the trademark.
When Ford ressurected the GT40 project some 4 years ago, it was only then that they found out that the name GT40 had been pulled out from underneath their feet. Apparently, they entered into negotiations over licensing the GT40 name, but the trademark holder asked for too much money I’m told - and Ford decided to simply say “Well… fuck him…”
That’s my understanding on the story at any rate. If I’ve got it wrong, I’m more than happy to stand corrected!
Well fancy that! I wrote my answer just 1 minute after a more detailed answer by a fellow Doper!
Hmmmm… I wasn’t too far off the mark after all!
As an example of how completely over the top this car is, consider this:
If you replaced each wheel of the Ford GT with an entire 1992 Mazda Miata like I own, the resulting contraption would still generate 100 lb-ft less torque (400 vs. 500) and sixteen fewer horses (486 vs. 500) than the GT does now.
This is a truly superlative vehicle, and for the best performance money can buy, it’s dirt cheap.
As an example of how completely over the top this car is, consider this:
If you replaced each wheel of the Ford GT with an entire 1992 Mazda Miata like I own, the resulting contraption would still generate 100 lb-ft less torque (400 vs. 500) and sixteen fewer horses (486 vs. 500) than the GT does now.
This is a truly superlative vehicle, and for the best performance money can buy, it’s dirt cheap.
Correction: that’s thirty-six fewer horses (464 vs. 500).
Are you saying that most people can’t afford this, so they shouldn’t advertise on TV at all? Or that people watching the superbowl tend to be able to afford it even less than most people (ie. rich people watch the superbowl less)?
Whichever, the possibilities that (1) there’s some other reason for advertising this, such as branding ‘Ford’ and (2) yes, marketing people can be dumb sometimes seem plausible answers
I am surprised that no has mentioned the disclaimer that was run at the bottom of the GT ad. As the car was sliding around some corners this appeared at the bottom of the screen.
In case anyone pulls my name this year for secret Santa, Hint, Hint 
One more small bit of GT 40 trivia. The 40 stood for the cars height in inches. Yep it was only 40" tall.