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New Ford GT details: High price, low production

Ford GT in Geneva
Ford GT in Geneva

We're well more than a year away from the first Ford GT going into a customer's hands, a timeline that's led Ford to dispense details about the supercar with an eyedropper. Today, Ford reveal two key data points — the production figures and a strong hint about its price — which puts the GT into clearer focus. If you own a Lamborghini dealership, 2016 may be a rough year.

Ford says it will assemble 250 GTs a year, with final assembly at supplier Multimatic's plant in Canada, which will handle the carbon-fiber and aluminum chassis. Ford stopped short of saying how many years production will run, although Dave Pericak, head of Ford's Performance unit, did say on Monday that total GT production would total in the "hundreds, not thousands."

The other news came from executives who all but said the more-than-600 hp GT powered by a twin-turbo 3.5-liter Ecoboost V-6 would compare in price to the V-12 powered, 691-hp Lamborghini Aventador, which starts at $397,000. That's more than double what the 2005-06 Ford GT listed for — but that car was considered by many Ford insiders to be underpriced, and despite building 4,038 cars, auction prices for those GTs now run between $200,000 and $300,000.

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As for the look of the car, what you see is what you get; designers say the production version will be all but indistinguishable from the show cars, which were designed and engineered with normal crash standards in mind. And while Ford has yet to announce it, every sign points toward a plan to enter the GT in Le Mans in 2016, the 50th anniversary of Ford's historic victory there. Why build a race-car chassis with a race-car engine and never turn a wheel in anger?