Branding the experience - Part 1

In today's world of disposable products, support service outsourcing and America's expressed preference for bulk versus quality, finding an individual, organization or process that exceeds expectations is both exceedingly rare and worthy of a long term relationship.

I've been thrilled by brands such as FedEx, Porsche, Apple, Sony, Costco, and BMW. Whether products or services, the people in these organizations create such a compelling product, sales and support experience that I would never stray from any of them in their particular market.

At a more focused level, my nearby motorcycle dealer, Cal BMW/Triumph (http://www.calmoto.com/ ) is a member of that all-too-short list. The sales people are positive and knowledgeable, the showroom is a perfect balance of form and function, the service department floor is as clean as the table linen in a fine restaurant. And the waiters, um, techs all wear surgical gloves for reaching in to their perfectly clean and sorted tool cases parked uniformly next to every bike stand. I've purchased a few Beem'ers there and would never hesitate to recommend them to anyone. They provide a perfect customer experience in all aspects of motorcycle ownership. If you have a chance to check it out, swing by there and say hello to Kari Prager whose personal brand defines the entire place.

More recently and worthy of the autopian moniker, I've found an individual and organization who so absolutely exceeds all reasonable expectations of skill and professionalism that I just have to share.

Having owned a Ford GT for a year now, I've been planning a number of modifications – constrained by my desire to keep the car close to stock (and reversible to stock), improving safety and durability, and implementable by someone of my mid-level wrenching skills. After accumulating the required parts from a well respected supplier, I repeatedly opened the rear clamshell and, wrench in hand, attempted to begin the modifications.

Keyword: repeatedly. With each attempt the thought of applying a wrench to a car fulfilling a 45-year long dream, with a cost basis well beyond my first home, and with an ever-increasing collector resale value forced me to just step back, gently close the lid and walk away shaking my head in shame. It was a bit like prep'ing your abdomen for some do-it-yourself appendix surgery. With scalpel in hand, it's overwhelmingly hard to make that first incision. Or so I'm told.

Spring, summer and now fall approaching, I decided to outsource. But my fear of shipping my dream machine and leaving it in some others hands was daunting as well. And finding an expert in Ford GT internals is non-trivial. Even the most highly acclaimed service techs have rarely seen, no less worked on one. I didn't want my GT to be 'patient zero' for anyone.

Luckily, I'm within reasonable transport distance to two Ford GT experts. Since many of the purchased parts came from CoolTech LLC (http://www.cooltechllc.com/), a highly regarded Ford GT accessory supplier and tech expert located in southern California, I chose to ship the car there, despite it being twice the travel distance versus my alternative. However, this whole procedure got off to a very bad start after an unfortunate mis-step with a car carrier. The recommended carrier showed up with an unenclosed angled platform trailer behind his pickup truck - planning to drive it that way the 800 miles to L.A. and back. But it's a Ford GT so shame on the people recommending him. Shame on him for not telling me the configuration of his transporter. Shame on me for even feeling guilty giving him a generous tip and sending him on his way.

So ladened with bad car-karma, I decided to reset my plans and turned to Bill (aka 'Shadoman' to the Ford GT Forum crowd (http://www.fordgtforum.com)) of Discovery Automotive in Placerville, CA. Sometimes good fortune rains down on you for the oddest reasons. And, much like FedEx, Apple, Porsche and others, I came away with another example of the perfect customer experience.

Snug as the proverbial bug:

More to follow...

It started with a bike ride... (Part 1)

In my life experience, the zenith of all things automotive revolves around the Ford GT. With references both historic and personal in nature, it's a story that, so far, has a very happy ending.

Rewind to the mid-60's when the unholiest of corporate mergers - The Ford Motor Company and Ferrari – was under consideration. As the story goes, Ford was surreptitiously approached by a Ferrari representative to initiate consideration of an acquisition. Enzo Ferrari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzo_Ferrari) was not happy with the distraction of building and selling street-going sports cars to support his passion for racing. His hope was that in a post acquisition Ford+Ferrari world, he could focus all of his time, energy and additional funds on the purity of racing.

While Ford was investing a great deal of time and money crawling through Ferrari's people, financial and operational processes and increasingly growing excited about the prospects of such a marriage, Ferrari and Enzo was becoming more taciturn when considering what life would be like living and working in such a big American company. At some point, Enzo silently turned the tables and instructed his people to learn all they could of Ford's intellectual property and then once satisfied, he unceremoniously and surprisingly pulled the plug on the acquisition. This so incensed 'Hank the Deuce' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford_II) that he decreed that Ford would supplant Ferrari in their own endurance racing bastion of success – the 24 hours of LeMans.

The car would be called the Ford GT 40. with the '40' representing the overall height, in inches, of the car. Much of the work was carried out in the U.K., with many parts coming from across Europe and so it would be inaccurate to claim that car was a purely U.S. endeavor. It took a bit of debugging, with mechanical problems dogging the cars entry in 1964 and 1965, to get to the winners circle. But the resultant design placed first in the LeMans race in 1966-1969. Four consecutive years of Ferrari watching from behind. An astonishing fulfillment of an aggressive and audacious goal. (There's numerous books that describe this aspect of Ford's history. One is: http://www.biggerbooks.com/bk_detail.aspx?isbn=9781844253050) Here's a photo of the first winning car:

Overwhelmingly beautiful. The perfect sports/racing car:


Always a car geek, shortly after the race (there were no satellite feeds at the time) I had the chance to watch segments of it on ABC's Wide World of Sports. What caught my eye was the incredible design of the GT40. The first mid-engined car I recall seeing, aerodynamic, curvy and low to the ground, it was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. I watched intently on my black and white television hoping to see a few close-ups of this remarkable machine.

Fast forward a year or two: As a young kid growing up in New York city, I spent a lot of time on my bicycle. Rounding a corner near my brick row house, parked on the street before my very eyes was one of the very few street-registered Ford GT's. There it was in the mechanical flesh. White with blue center stripe it was even more spectacular up close than on television. I spent the better part of an hour circling the car on foot ogling every little detail – the Halibrand mag wheels, the raw open rear engine compartment with the seven liter V8 under the rear glass, the bank of toggle switches framing a wide set of gauges with the speedometer on the far right. I traveled nearly every day to visit the GT40. Parked in the same position, never meeting it's owner, I would check on it as part of every ride. Then one day it was gone. Never to be seen again but indelibly etched in my mind as the design against which all other cars would be compared. And to this day, no other car, absolutely nothing could measure up. Quietly, in the back of my mind, the dream of owning a street-worthy Ford GT40 began to turn over.

Fast forward again: Reading my monthly home delivery of Car and Driver, Ford CEO Bill Ford rolled out the Ford GT concept at the 2002 North American International Auto Show in Detroit commemorating their 100th anniversary. Shortly after the rollout, Ford announced their intent to build 4,000 of these recreations. With a small design team led by the young and brilliant Camilo Pardo (http://www.mazdausamedia.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=23971 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDT1VLN-qYc) the team worked quickly to convert a show car to a deliverable for the 2005 model year.

Here's how Ford described their forthcoming supercar:

'The Ford GT delivers 550 horsepower and a certified 205-mph top track speed rating, with styling inspired by the historic racecars and a comfortable and contemporary interior, all for a base price (MSRP) of under $150,000. An ultra high-performance two-seat sports car, the Ford GT is built on an aluminum spaceframe chassis with super-plastic-formed aluminum body panels and an aluminum-over-carbon engine cover. A mid-mounted supercharged 5.4-liter V-8 delivers 500 pound-feet of torque. Power flows to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual transaxle. Independent suspension, large Brembo brakes and Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tires on 18-inch front and 19-inch rear wheels all are standard equipment.'

Perhaps more beautiful than the original. Thank you Camilo.


Later learning that Ford had lost ownership of the GT40 brand, and accepting that the recreation was in fact 44 inches tall, the production version would be called the Ford GT. I remember the house, room, piece of furniture and position I was in when I set my eyes on the new old GT. The decision, right there, was to resume my old plan – I have to get one. But seeing the pricing, I rationalized it with the amendment of the standard term 'some day'. The hope was to wait for production to get going and in 5 years or so, perhaps the price would drop to an affordable level.

Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Somewhere during the second year of the model run, Ford announced that they were going to stand by their word and halt production of approximately 4,000 cars, at the end of 2006. And six months or so after that last production date, my weekly Ebay check showed an early trend that triggered alarm. The historic nature, limited availability and unique design of the car was beginning to drive the collector market to drive the pre-owned pricing higher than list prices. My plan of waiting for the prices to fall was never going to happen. If I was was to own one, there was no other time than the present. Discussed quickly with my very understanding wife, I found one for sale at a Lambo dealer with 214 miles on it. I was quite focused on buying an as-new model with as much warranty remaining, and a minimum chance of 'overuse' in the hands of an avid sports car owner. There was no negotiation on price, but a protracted wait period while a cracked windshield in an otherwise perfect car was dealt with. In October of 2006, build #899, a 2005 model with all options and of course white with a blue stripe, was tucked comfortably in to my garage.

Dream realized:


More to come...

Verde

The Fleet

Let me tell you a bit about the fleet. This should not be seen as hubris gone wild. Better to look at it all as a publicly-visible psychological profile. If the car tells you something about the owner, then the cars should say even more. So, I'll just ramble off the list – and over the next few entries, I'll tell you how they came to be part of the extended Verde fleet. So here we go:

• 2005 Ford GT – yes, the 100-year anniversary re-creation. I had to have this car. And will soon explain why.
  
  
  
  
• 2005 Porsche 997S Cabriolet – The supercar you can drive everyday (and, notwithstanding my PAFE - wait for it, wait for it), I do.
  
  
  
  
• 2005 Prius – I waited 8 months to take order of this Gen2 model. It's a modern miracle.
  
  
  
  
• 2005 Lexus SC430 – My wife fell in love with it the day she saw it and smiles every time she drives it - (except it needs a manual transmission).
  
  
  
  Other fleet auto-detritus:
  
  
• 2000 Lexus LX470 – The SUV that has been relegated to dorm trips and dog carrying. Nothing else. Nothing.
  
• 1998 Subaru Forrester – my daughters car - a new college grad with an art degree. Enough room for portfolio.
• 1995 Volkswagen Jetta – #1 son's car, entering college this fall, drives this one.
• 1989 Saab 9000S – other #1 son's car, bought when he was 18 months old and he sat in the back in a child seat. Now he's the owner and driver - off in college.
  
  

So, there you have it. Surely worthy of the term 'fleet'. Two are not stay-at-home cars – residing with our nest leavers. But they're returned on a regular basis for wrench and oil work brought to you by this blogger. Also worthy of further detail. You'll get it. Promise.