Somewhere in upstate New York - In this short clip from the the second episode of Season 2 on Amazon Prime’s The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson floors the accelerator of the Ford GT he’s driving from New York to Niagara Falls for the first time.
Given that the new GT has a 3.5-litre, twin turbo EcoBoost V6 rated for 482kW and 745Nm, and is largely made of lightweight carbon fibre, giving it a dry weight of only 1385kg and a top speed close to 350km/h, you’d expect the result to be impressive.
Well, apparently Clarkson is really impressed, even though it doesn’t have a V8, like its predecessor, as the little berlinetta pounds through the seven speed paddle-shift transmission almost as quickly as a litre-class superbike.
Ever the traditionalist, Clarkson praises the lack electronic trickery, revelling in the authentically raucous soundtrack of the hard-revving V6. Somehow, we think anybody old enough to remember the three-litre V6 Essex-engined Cortina, Sierra and Sapphire models of the 1980s will agree.