Fred Calero is a serial entrepreneur and Ford GT superfan. He owns a 2005, a 2006 and a 2020. One day while reading a GT internet forum he came across an interesting bit of information. It turns out that Ford built several dozen extra GT chassis to keep around for spare parts for repairs, but after more than a decade it did not need to keep them anymore.
Calero got the idea to buy one and turn it into a track car. Then, his friend and colleague Jeremy Sutton, who worked for Ford’s SVT division when it originally developed the GT, encouraged him to grab the whole lot. There were 30 in all, so Calero set up a new company called GT1 to develop a complete car.
It acquired the carbon fiber body molds from Swiss racing outfit Matech, which built competition versions for endurance racing, and tweaked them for higher production and the latest aerodynamic strategies. A new high performance suspension was also designed.
The car can accelerate to 60 mph in less than three seconds and exceed 200 mph despite the high downforce wing it has that was not featured on the more streamlined factory GT.
GT1 plans to complete four customer cars next year at an estimated price of $1.2 million, then increase the output to four per quarter until it runs out of chassis.
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