A 2006 Ford GT that once belonged to television presenter Jeremy Clarkson is about to hit the open market, and its famous former owner has already added a bit of personality to the sale.
The car is currently with Tom Hartley Cars, a British dealer specializing in luxury, performance and classic vehicles. It wears blue paint with white racing stripes, a look that evokes the model’s Le Mans heritage. What separates this example from the pack is its rarity within the production run: it is one of just 101 cars shipped to the EU when the GT was being built, a distinction that sharply limits how many buyers on that side of the Atlantic can claim to own one.
The car also comes with the kind of documentation that matters at this level. The dealer says it carries a clean service history from GT101, a shop in Colchester, England, that focuses on caring for the Ford GT and the Ford Mustang. A supercharged supercar is only as reliable as the people maintaining it, and a specialist record removes much of the uncertainty that comes with buying an exotic secondhand. The dealer describes the car as being in beautiful condition, and its 28,000-mile odometer reading suggests it was driven and enjoyed rather than tucked away.
No price has been set, since the GT has not been formally listed. It is unlikely to come cheap, though. Earlier this year, a 2006 Ford GT Heritage Edition sold for $660,000. This car lacks those famous Heritage colors, making a direct comparison imperfect, but its low EU production numbers and celebrity ownership could push the figure higher.
Clarkson himself could not resist chiming in when the car was announced, joking in the comments that he hoped someone had finally fixed the alarm.
Beneath the famous name sits a genuinely capable machine. The 2006 GT uses a supercharged 5.4-liter V8 making 550 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque, sent to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual. That setup delivers a zero-to-60 mph time of 3.3 seconds and a top speed of 205 mph, figures that still impress two decades on.
Source
Images Via: Carl Hartley
Shawn Henry