2005-2006 Ford GT40

[Bill Wells]

History Buff said :


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"The production run of 4038 GT's ended with the 2006 model year on the 21st of September, 2006, short of the originally planned 4500[6]. The Wixom Assembly plant, where the GT was finish-assembled, is scheduled for closure in 2007 and has stopped production of all models as of May 31, 2007[7]. Sales of the GT continued into 2007, from cars held in storage and in dealer inventories." But something about that rumor of dismantling ten finished cars doesn't make sense because if they stopped production at over 400 cars short of the number of cars they planned to build,they have lots of new old/stock leftover parts."

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Wally . I spent several years in production planning for one of the then BIG 3 .

When they ' plan ' a max build of 4500 units ( or whatever) they seldom order parts for that many 'up front ' . They typically hedge their parts purchases in increments to tie into their continually changing production planned build volume , either up or down. It is common knowledge, plus some inside info from SALEEN and Wixom, that some production was 'missed' or 'lost' in the early stages of building these cars , due to reworks, some bad parts , later engineering changes etc . Sometimes missed production can be made up by working over time or extending a planned last unit build date . Sometimes it is not made up.

However , decisions were made along the way to not make up the lost production - thus parts purchases would be adjusted accordingly.

As such, there are no massive amounts of parts laying around for the 400+/- units not built vs the original planned 'not to exceed' 4500 max build that had been reported in the press. You will not see 'continuation cars' built at a later date as some other folks have done in the past due to 'parts just discovered years later'.

Assuredly some parts are left over, some are required by law to be produced for future repair needs etc .

I am sure a call to Saleen in Troy Michigan might give you some info as to who has any left over parts - and what they are . ASC and Saleen are now combinded and housed together at the Troy plant that built the GT's. Most likely, any parts left over are now probably in the safe keeping of Ford for sale by dealers as needed for repairs .

Bill ........ ps. the old High School gang still asks about you - I tell them to buy one of your books and help out a fellow former classmate . LOL