When Ford finally sent out letters to applicants who had been chosen to purchase the new Ford GT, the list of people who announced they’d gotten one was almost as controversial as the list of people who announced they hadn’t. And with celebrities like the musician Deadmau5 and YouTuber Shmee150 receiving cars, some people were upset that Ford seemed to have ignored true Ford fans. But that’s not exactly the case.
In an interview with @FordOnline, Raj Nair, Ford’s head of product development and CTO, claimed the vast majority of new Ford GTs actually did go to Ford fans.
“We tried to be as gracious as we could to our loyal Ford customers. As a gesture of our appreciation for Ford enthusiasts, 87 percent of the selected applicants are existing Ford vehicle owners and 69 percent own a previous-generation Ford GT,” said Nair.
Those percentages are definitely encouraging, especially when you consider what he said next.
“We created a distribution strategy in an effort to be as fair as possible and are working on a plan that will allow us to make even more deserving applicants happy. Stay tuned,” Nair told @FordOnline.
Does that mean there are more GTs coming after the initial run is finished? It definitely sounds like it. And that might also explain why some applicants were waitlisted and not rejected outright. Even the rejection letter hints at the possibility of additional cars.
So if Ford does decide to build more GTs, it’s likely that they’ll be distributed in a similar fashion. Eight or nine out of every 10 built will go to Ford enthusiasts and previous-gen GT owners, and only a few will end up in the hands of celebrities. We’ll still probably hear more about the celebrities that got them, but at least we now know Ford isn’t catering to them nearly as much as it might seem.
This story originally appeared on Road & Track via Jalopnik.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/2b49o28
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment