If the Ford sources who spoke to our pals at Road & Track are to be believed, then Detroit Auto Show next month will be some kind of magical Ford-a-palooza where all your Ford dreams are bound to come true. Dreams like an even hotter Shelby GT350, a new Raptor, and oh yeah, even a Ford GT replacement.
Say it with me now: Holy shitballs.
A new Ford GT has been heavily rumored for the past couple months, positioned as both a road car to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ford's GT40 victory at Le Mans and a racing variant to return to that series. Here's what R&T has to say about that:
A replacement for the Ford GT will likely be the big headliner at Detroit. As we've previously reported, several indicators on the racing side suggest Ford is preparing a Le Mans GTE-class car for 2016, the 50th anniversary of the Ford GT40's first Le Mans overall win in 1966. A road-car counterpart would go with that, and Detroit is the logical place to announce everything. If this all comes together as we've heard, it will be the story of the Detroit show, period.
R&T seems to think this one is a lock, which is absolutely nuts but also pretty wonderful to think about. My guess is if we see anything, it will be some kind of concept car, as we haven't seen any pre-production GT mules running around lately.
Other things they anticipate in January, besides the aforementioned Raptor replacement and GT350R, is the debut of Ford's new global performance brand, possibly to be called 999. I'm not sold on that name, but we'll see what happens.
All of this is up in the air until next year, but we have interesting things to look forward to in Motown.