Rowe Auburn offers a one-of-a-kind Ford with its own French heritage.
AUBURN – One customer at Rowe Auburn simply stopped in his tracks and let out a low whistle.
“Well, la-ti-da,” he said.
The object of his affection was glimmering in a corner of the Route 4 Ford dealership.
A Ford GT, the sleek race car of Le Mans fame, is for sale.
A tungsten-gray composite body encases its 5.4 liter, V-8, 550-horsepower engine. The tire treads measure 13-inches wide and sit on 19-inch wheels. It clocks 180 miles per hour. Easy.
And it can be yours for $167,000.
“It’s as sweet as can be,” said Leo Hamann, Rowe’s service foreman who had the good fortune to drive the car from its enclosed, heated delivery truck into the showroom.
Ford plans to make about 1,500 of the exotic race cars for two or three years, then stop production. This GT is the latest generation of the original Ford GT40 that swept the 1966 Le Mans, putting companies such as Ferrari on notice. Rowe owner Dan Pulkkinen won the chance to sell the car in a Ford lottery – one of only two Maine dealers to be so lucky.
The car arrived Thursday from Dearborn, Mich., where it was hand assembled. Bob McIntyre and B. Hubbard signed the engine block, attesting that it was “hand built, with pride.” It will stay on the showroom floor until it’s sold.
Not that anyone in the market for a family sedan will be interested.
The GT smells like a conventional new car, but that’s about where the similarities end. Besides its Lamborghini-like lines, it uses 9.5 quarts of oil held in a reservoir, not a pan. The dashboard looks like a cockpit with retro toggle switches. Each engine cylinder has two fuel injectors, rather than one. It boasts 500-pound-feet of torque. The seats are made of Kevlar. It gets 21 miles per gallon highway and 13 in the city.
Although the car is street legal in Maine, clearly it’s intended for the serious race car enthusiast or collector. Dean Swindler (“Yes, that’s really my name and I’m happy to say in 11 years of selling cars, no customer has ever come back to me and said You are one!'”) is with Rowe’s business development center. He said he expects the GT will be sold to a serious buyer, but until then, the public is welcome to take a peek.
“It really is a car that needs to be seen,” he said. It’s the first GT Rowe has ever had on its floor.
Hamann – who’s worked at Rowe for more than 20 years – said he was pretty nervous driving the car into the dealership. Although he doubts he topped 20 miles per hour, he said you could tell the GT is a real race machine.
“It’s got that sports car feel … stiff suspension but very responsive,” he said.
Then he paused, and smiled wide.
“It was quite a treat.”
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