Why did the MSRP of Ford's GT increase $10,000 for late 2005s and all 2006s? Some say it's because Ford saw dealers gouging -- yet still getting -- transaction prices far in excess of the original $139,995 (Ford insiders have told me company execs wished they'd picked a higher MSRP from the start). Others say it's because Ford needed more money on the later cars to make up for unforeseen costs overruns on earlier cars, and this is essentially true.
Beyond the paint and fuel tank issues on early cars there was the much-publicized "A-arm" recall that had non-believers in Ford's ability to produce a world-class exotic jumping up and down shouting, "See! Told you so!!" The problem came from an aluminum casting technique that saw early A-arms crack during the cooling process. Ford needed to revamp the casting technique, but if they halted production of the GT until the issue was fully sorted the cars would have been delayed for several months.
The sort-term alternative? Fully machine the A-arms in high-grade (and high cost) billet aluminum. Thus cars made through July of 2005, or somewhere around 1800 of the first 2000 cars produced, are equipped with exotic (and downright purdy) billet A-arms. According to Ford insiders each car equipped with such A-arms (including our long-termer, number 1456 of the 2005 model run) cost the company an extra...$10,000 to produce.
So just to review, the later cars with the less expensive standard aluminum A-arms are the ones with the higher MSRP.
And now you know the rest of the story.
Karl Brauer, Editor in Chief, Edmunds.com @ 9,280 miles
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