GR-1, Possible replica?

[Sharroll Celby]

Originally Posted by Gunner

You need a much better understanding of auto sales dynamics and costs. Really. Engine cost is not the make or break figure here.

So, tell me YOUR understanding of auto sales dynamics and costs.....

Ford (and others) make MILLIONS of cars a year. Why NOT make one that has some style to it?

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Sharroll Celby

So, tell me YOUR understanding of auto sales dynamics and costs.....

Well, we're a little short on room. Ford can't make a car the way the Kirkhams do - it has to be engineered, part by part, from the ground up, for production in a particular fashion. When there's a suitable platform to borrow and reshape, it saves some work. But the bottom line is that Car #1 from an assembly line costs $200M or more in development and production readiness.

Now, who do you sell this car to? The market for a completely custom-engineered beast is very slim. They won't sell millions, or even significant thousands, of something in the $50-60k range. So you move down market and build it on a Mustang or similar platform... thereby losing all the buyers who want a properly engineered sports car, not a reworked Mustang at a premium price. And you still can't sell all that many snarky 2-seaters... go add up the sales of the Vette, the Miata/MX5, the S2000, etc. and I don't think you hit 100k units a year.

Your "millions of them at $25,000" is a pipe dream completely unconnected to car-making and -buying reality. This isn't esoteric knowledge - anyone who's paid attention to production car history for the last 20-30 years would grasp it.

Ford (and others) make MILLIONS of cars a year. Why NOT make one that has some style to it?

I think they do. Not Lamborghini-Ferrari style, because there's a limited market for those cars and it's pretty much saturated. But I think Ford does well serving the markets it does with the vehicles it develops. Could be better. Could be prettier here and there. Could be there's there's an occasional clunker in there. But not bad. Better than cookie-cutter, rebadging old crap endlessly GM!

[RedBarchetta]

An honest question: So why is Ford so fearful to make a car (like the one above, albeit with less exotic materials and more true production oriented) to compete with the CORVETTE? And don't go down the Ford GT track...that was a purpose built supercar with limited production numbers.

-Dean

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by RedBarchetta

So why is Ford so fearful to make a car...to compete with the CORVETTE?

Because Chevy has a 50-year head start. No matter that Ford could engineer a Vette-killer at about the same price point... it won't have the immense cachet of a Vette (or, in its stratum, a Mustang). You'll note that Mustang competition comes and goes, comes and goes, and the real pony just keeps on sellin' and winning hearts.

I'm a third-gen Ford man and loathe bowties... but I don't care to see a Ford "Vette." In fact, it was a close toss between 707 and a Z06... and 33 years of wanna won out. This time.

[Jac Mac]

You have to think along the lines of what it might look like if Ford were to have built it, or could yet. I would guess that for mass production that it might have 'lost' the transaxle in the process & been built on a Mustang or Aston Martin floorpan, remember the aussie? modular V10 convertible experiment.

But how would 'you' as a replica builder want it done, on chassis similar to what we have now, or grafted on to a donor car floorpan as intimated above. For me it would be on a chassis similar to current replicas or perhaps an alloy mono type chassis like the RCR cars adapted of course to the front engine/transaxle deal. Im not a fan of adapting to an existing unit body floorpan like some of the GTO F****** car lookalikes, too much corrosion waiting to happen when the f/glass is bonded to the steel structure & while its a relatively inexpensive way to build the car initially, in the case of accident damage its a nightmare to rebuild other than buying another donor floorpan & starting again.

[RedBarchetta]

Gunner, I believe a '10 Camaro comparo was attempted on that one. But Ford already has the 'Stang and they are reviving the 5.0 GT, so it would be wasted effort. Besides, the GR-1 is waaaay too sexier for that...could be easily postured in the Z06/Viper arena. In this economy though, no one is going to touch that thin market.

Which brings us back to the only shop that could actually pull it off in kit or turn-key minus form...Kirkham.

[Sharroll Celby]

Now you are making stuff up. I never wrote "millions of them at $25,000".

Ford COULD build the GR-1 on the Mustang platform, or even the Fusion platform, thus saving all the millions of dollars in development costs. Of course, the market for a completely custom-engineered beast is very slim. Sure, they lose all the buyers who want a properly-engineered sports car. I would wager that those customers are FAR fewer than your typical Mustang buyer. LOTS of buyers buy their cars on LOOKS alone, as long as it fills their needs. Remember, Ford built the original 64 1/2 Mustang on the Falcon chassis, and sold over a million Mustangs those first couple of years.

I think the GR-1, on a rebodied Mustang chassis, (and possibly called the Thunderbird!) would have the capability of selling over 100,000 units a year, if priced correctly.

[RedBarchetta]

Don't forget this little concept called "product cannibalization." If Ford did decide to build a $30K example of this car, that's XX,XXX many Mustangs that they won't otherwise sell. So they've essentially shot themselves in the foot by lowering their ROI on the Mustang production line.

Again, I defer to master fabricators like Kirkham to eventually offer something with these lines and sizzle. Ford won't because, well (1) they choose to and (2) they have too many shareholders to please. You lose a lot of freedoms when you go public.

[Sharroll Celby]

Is it not possible (or probable?) that Ford would sell MORE Mustangs AND GR-1s than just Mustangs alone? How many Falcon sales were lost when the Mustang debuted? WAY less than Mustangs sold! It could go wither way.