Production Possibilities

The Man, the Myth ... the Chili? Designing amazing cars isn't the only thing Carroll Shelby is famous for. He also helped start a nationally known chili cook-off in his home state of Texas. The Shelby chili recipe was so popular that he started selling packets of his seasonings. In 1986, he sold his successful chili company to Kraft.

Will the people at Ford produce the GR-1? There are signs that they might. First, they created a working car, not just a showroom mockup. Second, with so much of the GR-1 built around parts from the GT, a large percentage of the car is already what the engineers call "production feasible." When the GT concept was given the go-ahead in 2002 to go into production, only five percent of it was production feasible. There could be some changes in a production model GR-1, such as the V10 giving way to a V8, which would be cheaper and easier to produce. Ford hasn't offered a narrow price range, but it's estimated that the cost would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Finally, there are rumors that the GT, currently the jewel in Ford's high-performance crown, could be taken out of production in 2007. As Autoweek points out, that gives Ford plenty of time to bring the GR-1 down the production pipeline, thus maintaining their presence in the world of high-performance cars.

Photo courtesy Ford Motor Company

For more information on the Ford GR-1 and other concept cars, check out the links on the next page.