Ford will end production of the $500,000 GT supercar with a special edition | Daily News Byte

DETROIT — Ford Motor will end production of its $500,000 GT supercar later this year with a special edition model that pays tribute to the car’s racing heritage.

The Detroit automaker on Wednesday said the 2022 Ford GT LM Edition will be the final model of the third-generation car, which was revived in 2016 after a decade off the market.

Ford says only 20 of the GT LM Edition cars will be made. Deliveries are scheduled to begin this fall with production ending later this year, according to the automaker.

“As we close this chapter of the Ford GT, the GT LM Edition gave us the opportunity to inject more heart and soul from a podium-finishing racecar, furthering the tribute to our win at 2016 Le Mans ,” Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsports, said in a release.

The GT is a collector car steeped in racing history. This GT LM Edition pays tribute to the third-generation supercar’s overall win at the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours as well as Ford sweeping the podium to defeat Ferrari — as demonstrated in 2019’s “Ford v. Ferrari” — in the famous France race in 1966.

The current generation GT was a surprise reveal at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Ford kept the car secret even within the company, allowing only select executives and employees to work on it in a nondescript basement room in a building near its headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

Only 1,350 of the third-generation GTs — powered by a twin-turbocharged, 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine with 660-horsepower and a 216 mph top speed — were built by supplier and contract manufacturer Multimatic Inc. of Markham, Ontario, in Canada.

A Ford spokesman declined to comment on the possibility of a fourth-generation GT in the future. He also declined to comment on the pricing of the latest limited edition model, saying GT pricing starts around $500,000.