In a move that may seem a bit peculiar for the maker of an all-American supercar, Ford announced that it will be having a Canadian company take care of the manufacture of the Ford GT.
The new Ford GT got unveiled last month at the Detroit Auto Show, but since the car’s body will be made of carbon fiber, that’s the reason why Ford will be having Ontario-based Multimatic take care of production for the GT. And while the announcement was originally made today at the Canadian International Auto Show, news about it leaked to the Chicago Auto Show, where the GT re-debuted in the Windy City with a silver paint job; the GT first launched at Detroit with a blue paint job.
According to Ford Canada president Dianne Craig, Multimatic has actually been working with Ford’s performance arm for the past three decades. And it looks like Ford was looking at expertise rather than anything else, considering the new Ford GT is widely considered a niche vehicle, or one that only appeals to a smaller subset of consumers, instead of the masses. “Ford was looking for a skill set and went where the expertise was,” said AutoPacific analyst Dave Sullivan. “If it were in Michigan, they would have done it in Michigan. But carbon fiber bodies are still an immature technology and there is not a lot of selection of available vendors.”