[Civic Fan]

Originally Posted by CivPilot

I really, really hope your joking? You actually formally complained because his opinion did not match what you thought it should be?

The end result will be Clarkson and the boys (and probably the millions of viewers if he decides to make it a news item) laughing their arses off and you having some sort of blood pressure induced attack. Calm down, he is totally entitled to have a different opinion to you and totally entitled to air it wether you agree with him or not.

Oh, and not being a pedant or anything... well actually I am....

The Ford that Clarkson bought was a Ford GT. NOT a GT40, GT40's were made years ago and raced at LeMans and were named as such because the roof was 40inches off the road. The new lookalike was actually a bit taller so the '40' was dropped from the name. In fact Ford NEVER officially refered to the car as the "GT40" even when it only existed in concept form, it was always called the "Ford GT"

And the reason his car turned out to be more trouble than it was worth was due to the Alarm system fitted by Ford UK constantly shutting the car down, the car itself was fine and the American models (without the Ford UK alarm addition) work very well indeed. In fact for the money he paid (it was infact around £101k on the road) there wasn't alot that could keep up on straights or twisty's. Hell, the Ford GT even won the British evo car of the year test when it launched in the uk against cars costing several thousand more.
So dissing his knowledge based on your lack of knowledge only makes you look a little... erm... ill informed. Sorry.

Ford GT, Proper honest supercar... unfortunatly 'blessed' with a UK fitted alarm system .

I disagree with your comments on the name. It is well documented that the real reason the GT40 is know as the "Ford GT" has nothing to do with the measurements of the car. In fact a British company, Safir Engineering, who made continuation GT40s in the 1980s, owned the GT40 trademark at that time, and when they completed production, they sold the excess parts, tooling, design, and trademark to a small Ohio company called Safir GT40 Spares. Safir GT40 Spares licensed the use of the GT40 trademark to Ford for the initial 2002 show car, but when Ford decided to make the production vehicle, negotiations between the two failed. It is speculated that too high a price was demeaned of Ford for the rights to the GT40 name and as a result, the new “Ford GT” does not wear the GT40 badge.

I also disagree with your comments on the reliability of the car. Early production Ford GT’s experienced many minor problems (including glitches with the electrical and climate control systems, leaking power steering and engine coolant hoses, and a steering column rattle on some cars), and two bigger problems.

In December of 2004, Ford recalled all Ford GTs that had been built up to that point (448 units were built, but only 283 had been shipped to dealers, and only 106 had been delivered to retail customers) because of concerns regarding the strength of the suspension control arms. They had been "squash cast" for added strength, a new process also used by Porsche and Alfa Romeo. But after Ford discovered a crack in one of the high-mileage development cars, the company decided to replace the parts on all the production cars.

There was also a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) to inspect the engine on early cars built in 2004 for an oil leak at the main seal. The finish of some crankshafts was flawed, causing an oil leak. Ford dealers stopped the leak with a new main seal and a "Speedi-Sleeve" around the crankshaft, a device commonly used to repair worn engines in older cars. Some journalists felt that this was an improper fix for an expensive supercar and criticized Ford for not either replacing the defective crankshaft or replacing the entire engine. There are a few other TSBs for the car, including the need for hose clamps to be adjusted or replaced!