I Bought a (Different) Ford GT!

This is a 2006 Ford GT Heritage, and in fact, it's my 2006 Ford GT Heritage, yes? That's right, after eight years of owning a blue and white Ford GT, I sold it so that I could buy a blue and orange Ford GT. I recognize that most people will think this is insane, but I love it. And today, I'm gonna tell you why I did it, why I swapped one Ford GT for another, and I'll show you around the quirks and features of my new car. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the AutoZone Rescue. In case you missed it, we're teaming up with AutoZone and their quality parts to rescue America's supercar, the first-gen Dodge Viper. Last week, we used AutoZone's free loan-a-tool program to borrow what we needed to install a new DNJ power steering pump that's made to fit like the original. Everybody's afraid to buy an exotic car, but if you buy an American exotic, you can get parts for it at your local AutoZone. Ho-ho! Oh. Business. Our old power steering pump is out. Thankfully, we can go to AutoZone and get a brand new power steering pump. If you try to buy one from Viper specialty stores, it is really, really expensive. But the power steering pump used in the Viper is the same one that's used in trucks at the time. So it's a lot more available, it's a lot more affordable. And I just punched in the year make model and this power steering pump came right up. New reservoirs on our brand new pump, new pulleys here and you can't just press on it. So we went to AutoZone and we rented a specialty tool. Which will help us install the pulley without getting it off angle. What you do is you thread this in all the way to the shaft, thread in the little pusher that's sized for this specific pulley, and then we hold and we turn. Should be pretty straightforward. Pretty fun. And now we have a brand new unit ready to go on. You just return the tool and you're done. Easy. Stick around for the next episode where we tackle a full fluid service on America's supercar. Oh my god! My new... Ford GT, replacing my old Ford GT, which is actually the same car, more or less. You may remember a few weeks ago, I announced that I was selling my Ford GT, my blue with white stripes Ford GT, I was selling it on Cars and Bids. And it did sell for $540,000 after more than eight years, my old Ford GT is gone. Come on, but I couldn't be. Without a Ford GT, the horror, and so I've replaced it with this one. And that probably leads you to your most significant, your most pressing question, quite possibly your only question, which is why? Why did I swap out a blue Ford GT for a blue Ford GT? My reasons for selling the old Ford GT, I made clear in my video about it. The simple truth is, I never really liked the color. Blue with the white stripes, I never really liked it. When I bought that car eight years ago, I could barely afford it, or maybe not afford it at all. And it was the only one that I could find in my price range because it had really high miles. Finding a high mileage Ford GT is next to impossible. I didn't have color selection with high miles. I just had to buy the one that was available. And so I did. And over eight years, the colors never really grew on me at any point. Now, when I mentioned this in my previous video, so many comments tore it apart. Those are the best colors. I love those colors. Fine. I get it. A lot of people love those colors. In fact, the designer of the car, I met him and he told me that those were the best colors for the car. I just never liked them. It's okay. We can like different things. And I get that a lot of people think it's cool. I just never did. And so after eight years owning the car in a color I didn't love and watching blue become one of the most valuable colors, I decided to cash out. Why not sell the car which Which I dearly love in a color that I don't love. Get the big money since that color became a really valuable one. Sell it, cash out, and get one in a color that I do really like. And so I think that makes sense to most people. But another major question would be, why replace it with another one? After more than eight years in a Ford GT, don't you want a different experience? Why get back into the same car? And the answer is actually simple because I think that the Ford GT provides the experience that I want better than any other car in existence. Allow me to give a little more detail. In my world, I have three very special cars. I have a few more than that, but three stand out. My sort of top Three, the best of the bunch. I've had my Porsche Carrera GT for about four years now. I've had my Lamborghini Countach for a little more than three years, and I've had a Ford GT for more than eight years. Now, that's not a particularly long time to own cars, but in YouTube land, it is an eternity. YouTube is littered with YouTubers who insist they are keeping a car forever, only to sell it six months later. I do not have any forever cars. I am convinced that all of my cars will eventually get sold at one point or another. Yes, even my beloved Carrera GT, they will all eventually sell, but... I have decided that for right now, this three car solution is absolutely perfect for me. Unlike a lot of other people, YouTubers, car enthusiasts, I don't want to have 15 or 20 or 25 different cars that I never use that sit in some giant space that I can show people. It's just not for me. I want to have three cars. That really do it all, that I can actually love and enjoy and use and keep at home where I have only a four-car garage, and that's what I really want. And my three cars deliver three amazingly different and amazingly special experiences. The Countach is a crazy-looking, insane, cool, attention-grabbing, vintage, loud experience. You don't do it often, but when you It's amazing. The Carrera GT is totally under the radar, subtle, and the greatest driver's car of all time. And then the Ford GT is the usable one. It's durable, it's reliable, easy to own, easy to maintain, and still tremendously cool and fun to drive. Those three cars, between the three of them, really run the gamut of automotive sports car experiences. Old, new, high-strung, durable, slow, fast, it's old. All contained in those three cars for me. And to be clear, there are other cars that are out there that in theory I still want, like a Ferrari F40 or an F50, but it's become clear to me that in my career trajectory and given their values, I'll probably never end up owning one of those cars. Then there's other less expensive cars that I love, a Ferrari 550 or a Lamborghini Murcielago, but I look at those cars and I don't see them doing anything better. Then the three cars that I already own and love. And again, I'm not trying to add. I don't want to sit here with 10, 20, 30 cars in a collection. I wanna get focused and choose cars that do a wide range of experiences and that I can actually really use and enjoy frequently. Whittle it down to three. Then keep in mind, I've driven everything and I've decided after sampling all the cars that for my needs and my budget, these three cars deliver exactly what I need. This is the perfect setup for me. And so with that in mind, I wanted to double down on the Ford GT. I know I'm not really going to do better than the Ford GT in my three-car setup, but I wanted one that I really, really loved, and there was no point sticking around with a color that I wasn't really that into if I really was sure that I was committed to the Ford GT. I might as well swap it out for one that I really, truly love in a color that I absolutely enjoy and think is really special and awesome. So what exactly is a Ford GT Heritage and why did I want one? We'll start with the first question. So the Ford GT was made for two model years, this version 05 and 06. Not that hard to keep track of. In 05, Ford offered six colors, silver, yellow, red, white, black, and blue. In 06, silver was swapped out for gray, essentially the same, but they also added a new option which was Heritage. And that's this. It was this sort of light baby blue with an orange stripe and giant circles on the side. for racing numbers and the intent was to replicate the look of the famous Le Mans winning Ford GT40 from the 1960s and I think they did a pretty good job of doing exactly that. Looks a lot like that car which makes sense because the overall design of this Ford GT was also intended to look like that car so putting the paint scheme on it only seemed like a reasonable decision. Now in the end And Ford only sold 343. 343 Heritage models for that 06 model year before it was gone forever. And this is one of the 343. To be clear, Heritage didn't add anything else. It didn't get extra power or special wheels or trim. It was just the paint. That's what makes it the Heritage. So why exactly did I want it? That's a good question. Actually, I've been on and off the fence about the Heritage colors for a long time. At various points, I've said, it's a little much. And it looks a little like a clown with sort of weird clown lips painted in front. And a lot of the commenters have complained, Doug said it looks like a clown and now he's getting one! And I understand that nuance is dead on the internet, but two things can be true. Once, I can think it is a little much and looks a little clowny, but also think it's pretty cool and want one. And that's exactly the situation. I do think this is totally over the top and a little ridiculous to drive around on the street. It's just a little in your face and aggressive with the numbers on the side, but I also think it adds an unbelievable dimension of exoticness to the Ford GT that the regular colors simply do not capture. In fact, I don't even think that they come close. Now that I've owned this car and driven it around for a few weeks, it is amazing how much more special and insane and crazy and cool this color scheme is. In fact, I bought this car online, sight unseen, didn't see it for months before I bought it. More on that later. And I wasn't exactly sure. I'm not sure how I was going to feel about the colors. A couple weeks into owning it, I am absolutely certain this was the right call. I love this color scheme, even though, yes, it is a little cloudy and a little much. But to be clear, I walk out, I see this car in my garage, and I just feel this awe of it that I didn't have of my blue-white car, that I never loved the color. I look at this, and I'm just like, damn. That thing's cool. And there was another important component to the whole heritage decision, which is I was looking at prices and values for Ford GTs and it kind of hit me that this was my last chance to get one of these cars. Back when I bought my blue white car eight years ago, an equivalent heritage car would have cost maybe 50 grand more. So I spent 225 on the blue white, a heritage would have been 275, maybe 300 at that time. These days, the premium is significantly more than that. And I realized if I ever wanted to go down the heritage route, I was never going to be able to do it if I didn't act now. Ford GT prices have been on a crazy upswing over the last year, more than basically any other collector car on the planet. The Ford GT, I am so thrilled, has finally become discovered and beloved the way that I have always loved it. But the truth is, that meant that I was going to get priced out of a heritage if I didn't act. And so I decided, I think I do want to try this while I can still So, reasonably affordably, If I sell my blue car, I can get into one of these and make it happen, and so I did. And to be honest, I suspect the trend will continue on Ford GT values, and especially the premium that the heritage cars bring over the regular Ford GT. I suspect they're only going to keep going up, and the heritage will only keep going up more. And that factored into my decision, too. I now have three kids, and I'm just not using my supercars as much. much as I once was. It makes me tremendously sad. I still use them as much as I can, but it's just not as much as I once did. And as a result, I am starting to think a little less about driving experience and a little more about investment. And I think that this car is quite simply the best investment. And I'm lucky because I bought this car about four months ago over the summer before values went even crazier in the ensuing time. And I really do think I got in at sort of Possible moment when I could have afforded to there's also one other nice benefit about having a heritage Which is if I ever run into financial trouble or difficulty and I need to sell this car I could always sell it and then buy another Ford GT Not heritage and take some money off the table and still end up in a Ford GT It's almost like an insurance policy against never having a Ford GT. It's actually kind of cool in that way But overall, I really do think that financially, this is a pretty good decision. And I know a lot of people complain in the comments, oh, Doug, you're spending all this money for the same car. It's so stupid. I have a suspicion that... In 5, 10, 12 years, this decision is going to make a little more sense to everybody else like it already makes sense to me. I think that's going to get proven out as the values of these cars continue to climb, and especially the heritage ones like this. And I fully intend to still own the car in that time frame. So there's your explanation of why. Now let's move on to the car itself, starting with... The coolest thing about this car, which is the mileage, this car has 19,000 miles, which is massively high for a Ford GT and especially a Ford GT Heritage. When this car was new, it was very clear the Ford GT would become a collectible someday and the Heritage was going to be the most collectible of them. One model, your only limited production run, this cool old school racing color scheme. And so everybody... Sucked them away and parked them with delivery mileage. Very easy to find a Ford GT Heritage with... Five miles or 100 miles or 500 miles, it is impossible to find one that has been driven. But I'm a driver, I wanted a car that's been driven, and I'm thrilled that I found probably one of the highest mileage heritage Ford GTs in existence at 19,000. It's not a huge number, but it allows me to add more miles guilt-free, which I plan to do. I'm going to drive this just as much as I drove my previous one. And since I bought this car and the Ford GT market continues to go crazy, a number of people have reached out to me and said, where can I find a Heritage that's been driven, that has miles, that I can actually use? And the answer that I give to all of these people is, you can't. So where did I find mine? How does Doug DeMuro go about finding a car like this to buy, especially if it doesn't really exist? Well, the answer to that is... I bought it from Caleb. Caleb is this guy in Tulsa, Oklahoma who has created an entire dealership called Caleb cars around just Selling 2005 and 2006 Ford GTs. There's only 4,000 of these cars on the planet, and this is his specialty, and it's basically all that he sells. And he's made himself a big player in this game. He's become really knowledgeable about these Ford GTs, and I really wanted one. And a lot of people said, if you want a good Ford GT, you call Caleb. And so I did, and my interaction was fantastic. Caleb told me what the car cost, and I offered him less, and he told me no. And then a couple weeks later, I purchased the car at his full asking price. In reality, it was great. It was no BS, no hassle. Caleb was easy. And maybe the most interesting thing about Caleb as it relates to this car is that Caleb is only 25 years old. Now, you might imagine over the last few months selling my blue car, buying this one, I've done a lot of Ford GT stuff, talking to potential buyers, potential sellers, etc. And one thing that's hit me hard over the last few months doing this Is that basically everybody who wants one of these is young. Really young. When I bought my blue white car eight years ago, I have to say the Ford GT was a bit of a boomer car. It was like an older car for older guys who, you know, like the 60s race cars, or maybe they had a Mustang and they wanted the next level of car, that sort of thing. It is shocking to me how much that's changing. And I think that one of the reasons behind the rise in Ford GT values over the last year or so is that young people are getting into this car much more But anyway, other interesting things worth discussing with this car. Let's start with the numbers on the side. So here's something you may not know about the Ford GT Heritage. They were all painted in blue with the orange stripe down the center and then goes across in the front. painted that way but the giant white circles on the side of the car where you're supposed to have your racing number that is not paint those are vinyl decals put over the paint after the car was made now i'm not a big fan of driving around with a racing number on the side of the car but i've seen four gt heritage cars with the giant white circles off And it just doesn't look right. I think it looks even weirder than driving around with racing numbers on the side of the car. So the circles are on. I wanted that. And I also think the cars look a little weird when the circle is just left blank. It's like, what is that white circle? What are you doing? I felt like I had to put a number in there. So you may be wondering why number three. I chose that number. This car was a blank circle car when I bought it. I chose number three to celebrate my three kids. No other special reason. I just felt that this is the most important thing I'm doing right now. And if I got to pick a number, that's the one to pick. So three for my three little guys. The other interesting thing there is the font on the three itself. I was going to put on the regular decal font, If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with Colorado license plates from the 1990s and my friends were able to actually perfectly replicate the three from the Colorado license plate font die set that was created in 1992 and still is on today. So the three on this car is actually the Colorado license plate three just brought to a larger scale and put on the side of of my Ford GT and that's where it comes from and I am thrilled with this very little A little bizarre piece of crazy, hilarious minutia. Now, another interesting thing, a lot of people have been asking me what's different about this car compared to your previous one? My old car was an 05, this is an 06. Is there any changes? And the answer is, I don't actually really notice any differences except... The window switches on the driver's door, the driver's window switch is raised up and the passenger's switch is not. And they must have made that change at some point between 05 and 06, raising up one of the switches, so when you go to put your hand down there and feel, you can tell, oh, this is the raised one, so it must be the driver's window. That must have been a change that they made for convenience. Now, the other change, this one I really do not like. ...is the subwoofer in the middle between the two seats. In the Ford GT world, a lot is made about having a four-option car. There are only four options, more or less, on the Ford GT. And if your GT has all the options, then it's more valuable. And this Ford GT does have all the options. It has painted brake calipers. Standard color was black. You could paint to silver or red. Personally, I think the silver looks a lot better with the Heritage. Red just adds a little bit of extra color. It's not great. The other option was wheels. There was a base wheel and an optional wheel. This car hasn't. Other option was stripes, which obviously this car has with the Heritage livery. And the fourth option was the Macintosh sound system with the giant subwoofer, which I hate. My previous car did not have the sound system. And if you remove the subwoofer, you actually get a little. Panel here for storage, which is lovely because this car does not have a trunk or a glove box or any other storage of any kind. So that panel was good. But more importantly, it was cool not to have the subwoofer because with the subwoofer in place, it blocks your look at the supercharger pulley, which is directly placed there behind the window in such a cool spot to be able to see it. And yet, you can't if you got the subwoofer. I don't like it at all. I didn't really have a choice when I was buying this car. I wanted a Heritage, only 343 exist. I wanted one with miles, maybe 20 exist, and 19 of them weren't for sale. And so, I had to do what I had to do, and I'm stuck with the subwoofer. Not a huge deal, but I vastly prefer the cars without it. Another interesting point to mention, compared to my old car, I will definitely miss the documentation. My blue-white car had every piece of paperwork saved from the very beginning, it was incredible. And this car simply doesn't. Basically, all I have- from its early days, the Windows sticker, showing that it was purchased new at Gray Daniels Ford in Brandon, Mississippi, for $175,000, more or less. Spent a little time in Florida, a lot of time in Texas. It didn't do any miles for $14,000. years until I bought it. And once I did, I sent it to the GT garage, which is located outside Detroit for GT specialists. They only work on this car. And we did kind of a nose to tail refresh, a lot of new stuff, new clutch, new suspension, all sorts of new hoses and clamps and everything you could want to totally refresh this car. And between that and 19,000 miles compared to my old My old car is 45,000 miles. This really does feel like a totally new. experience even though it's more or less the same car. And with that, let's talk driving experience by getting behind the wheel and getting out on the road. Time to drive my new old Ford GT. All right, driving my new Ford GT. Man, I love this car. It is hard for me to explain just how much I love the 05-06 Ford GT. I loved eight years with my last one, and I absolutely love this one. And from a driving perspective, it's actually pretty impressive just how nice this one drives. You know, I mentioned before, I basically got a much closer... Cleaner, kind of newer, lower mile car. Still 18,000 miles, but obviously that's almost a third of what I had before, a half. And it really feels it. And once I bought this car, I sent it. The reason I haven't done this video yet is I didn't have it for a long time. I sent it to the GT garage. But the result of this service is that the car just drives new compared to my old one. My old one didn't feel worn out or bad. It was just like lovingly used. Like getting in this one, it's almost amazing how much more... like new and modern and refreshed this car feels with new suspension and all new you know hoses and gaskets and this and that like this and half the miles this car just feels like on a completely different level of clean and and nice so what do i love about the Ford GT well there are so many positives i would say in terms of drawbacks i would say The biggest and the primary for me is that the front end feels a little light, and the steering feels just a little bit light in front. I only really mention that because I also have the Carrera GT, which was you know on sale at the same time, obviously in a different stratosphere, and that car is perfectly dialed in front. And you can tell when you drive these cars back to back the difference between a car that was $175,000 at that time and a car that was $450,000 at that time. They're, on paper, and to most people, they're no different, but when you get into the, like, little precision stuff, the Carrera GT just had a bigger budget to do crazier things. Now, the other thing that the Ford GT does not have is a bespoke powertrain. A lot of people are like, oh, it's just the truck motor. Put it in a supercar. It's not that simple, but I actually think that is one of the very best things about this car. There are a couple books about the 05, 06, 04 GT, I've read them all. Ford was very seriously considering developing a separate engine just for this car, potentially even a V10, which would have been amazingly cool. The benefit of using the existing motor, they basically did take a 5.4 liter truck engine, but everything's aluminum. It's a completely different engine. But they took, like, the backbone was this venerable engine they had already been using in the car. And by doing that, they created the most durable, usable, reliable, dailyable supercar ever to exist in history, which very few supercars truly are. It may not have... The exotic mystique of a Ferrari, but that's the point, and certainly from a styling perspective it has that. Now, other stuff about this car, getting back to stuff that I really truly love. The chassis is unbelievable. I think something that is oft not appreciated about this car is just how wonderfully it drives. Aside from my light front end thing, this car is absolutely magic to drive. The chassis is perfectly balanced. It never feels fragile. It always feels like you know exactly where you want to go and you can put it there. It's just a sweetheart. It's a very easy car to use. It's a very easy car to figure out where to put it and how to put it there. It's forgiving, it's fun, it can bite if you go too crazy, but that's also part of the fun. It's just a really well-developed car. And the reason I say it doesn't get enough credit is, Like, it had to be a well-developed car. Ferrari also had great cars at the time. Lamborghini also had great cars at the time. They had to develop a competitor that was just as good or better, but it's amazing that they did! This was the same company at the time that was giving us, you know, the 500 and the Freestyle. I mean, these were mediocre products, also-rans in every segment. And somehow, when they devote themselves to making a supercar, they go and make The best one on the planet at the time, at least for the price point. It's mind-boggling even still to me that this car came out of mid-2004. A very average company making very average cars when they could have messed it up. They could have made it average. One thing also that I don't hear getting enough love out there in the world is, um, The transmission on this car is absolutely perfect. It's just perfect. My old car had a short-shift kit. It was a Ford Racing short-shifter, so it was like a Ford accessory, basically. You bought it from the dealer, would install it from Ford, and it was great. But now that I'm in a car with the traditional manual transmission, how it's set up, I actually think I prefer it. The throws are longer, but they just are so satisfying, and it slots into gear so perfectly. Well, particularly when the car is warm, the transmission is warm, And it just has this unbelievably satisfying feel to it. It's funny, the other thing about my previous car is that it had a tune, and it was making like 700 wheel horsepower. The truth is, I don't feel it. I don't feel the difference. Now, obviously, I'm sure if you went for it, if you were on a racetrack or a drag strip, you would feel the difference. But around town driving, like, this car feels just as powerful at the low end. It feels great. It's absolutely just like, just as excellent. Oh, that shift. God, I love this shifter. This car is just so... Wonderfully excellent in so many ways. It deserves to be valued high because this is like a really cool cultural moment for the American auto industry. I still consider this to be the greatest American car ever manufactured. And I'm proud to own it. I'm proud it was designed in America by an American. And it is world class. And driving it around, I am happy to report that it is truly world class. And... Uh, just so wonderfully easy to drive. Proven by the fact that, you know, I got this car, it had been sitting, it had 17,900 miles in 2012, and then I bought it with 18,000 miles in 2026, so I drove 100 miles in 14 years, um, and I've done 200 miles in two weeks. And I'm not gonna stop, because I just love it. And so, that's... My new Ford GT. I've already given this car a Doug score. A few different versions, a few different times, so I'll skip it here. Instead, I hope you enjoyed my tour of my new car and my explanation for why I swapped one blue Ford GT for another.