It Took 9 Months To Rebuild A Ford GT That Crashed In 2007

In 2007, just two years after it left the factory, a Ford GT was sadly crashed at a racetrack by the owner’s friend, with the supercar spinning into a wall and clipping three of the four corners badly. When new, the car retailed at a $139,995 MSRP. In today’s money, that works out to roughly $232,158. Ouch. Still, the owner wanted to fix it and disassembled the car to see what needed to be done. The suspension was ripped from the chassis on each of the aforementioned corners, causing irreparable damage to the frame itself, and the owner couldn’t (or wouldn’t) go any further; the rebuild was effectively abandoned for 18 years. But the people at Throtl aren’t the sort to turn down a challenge, and they acquired the wreck with the goal of rebuilding it into a racecar in the first week of February of this year. The completed project was finally finished on October 31, just in time for the SEMA Show in Las Vegas less than a week later, and the intermediate nine months were fraught with challenges. But as it shone under the lights of the WD-40 stage, all the hard work (and money) was worth it. Let’s see what Throtl went through to create this carbon-bodied masterpiece.

The Rebuild Process

The first step was to put the car on a frame machine by the end of February, and that’s when it was discovered that the chassis was beyond saving. Little else could be reused, either, and it took months to find another frame, which was sourced on May 1, and the rebuild could finally begin. Throtl also acquired a genuine Doran Racing IMSA GT2 dry carbon fiber body (after a long phone call convincing Kevin Doran to reproduce it), and that required “extensive knowledge and work to install on the OEM chassis,” recounts Throtl co-founder Mickey Andrade. In fact, the fenders and front end alone took more than two weeks to properly fit and align.

Worse still, many of the parts for this 05/06 car were no longer available, and secondhand parts were typically damaged or wildly overpriced. Among the most difficult-to-source items were bushings and suspension arms, sway bars, end links, and various hardware. Fortunately, the guys at Throtl have made a lot of friends over the years, like those at SuperPro, and managed to get new replacement parts fabricated to make the supercar even better than new.

The Final Product

Once the wreck was restored into a car, Throtl focused on the details. Three-piece HRE 305 Classic forged wheels were wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R rubber – the same tires Koenigsegg uses on the Jesko hypercar – behind which a Wilwood big brake kit was installed. These are painted yellow in keeping with the WD-40 theme of the wrap. Under the hood, a full CSF cooling package was included to ensure that the 5.4-liter supercharged aluminum V8 can happily produce its 550 horsepower and 500 lb-ft of torque without any overheating. This now exhales through a custom titanium exhaust system from Vibrant, while Fortune Auto coilovers give the supercar an aggressive stance and sharper handling. Finer details include 3D-printed headlights, custom Speedhut gauges (yellow for the rev counter) with the Throtl script, and a pair of Sparco SPX reclinable seats.

After all that work, and a successful debut at SEMA, Andrade now plans to enjoy the car on the streets of San Diego – and show off the build at various events. This has been a real labor of love, but we can’t fully convey just how tough it was in this article, so if you want to see just how tough it is to rebuild a classic Ford supercar, check out the Throtl build series on YouTube.