Ford unveiled the Ford GT concept five months ago in a surprise reveal at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show, and it’s quickly become one of the most talked about sports cars of 2015. Not too many details were revealed about the high-tech supercar with a legendary heritage, but we were told it was “engineered to keep company with exotics.” Though, one look at the Ford GT and you’d think you were already looking at an exotic.
Last week, I got the invite to Dearborn to refelearn more about the Ford GT. We already knew the it would be packing 600-plus horsepower and would be chock full of techno-wizardry, but beyond that, the car’s development was shrouded in secrecy. We were told that before the Detroit reveal barely 30 people at Ford even knew about the new GT’s existence. Working out of a super-secret basement studio, the engineers and designers worked under threat of death if any information on its existence and development were to leak.
Our day began with the a brief about the technology and the psychology behind the design and development of the GT. According to research undertaken by the Innovation folks at Ford, modern day drivers are subject to far too many distractions. While that’s not exactly news to most, I only mention this as the fine folks over at Ford have acknowledged that modern cars have grown bloated with visual distractions and are working to eliminate as much of that as possible.
To keep the driver’s focus at the optimal level, and focused on the road conditions and driving, Ford have attempted to keep distractions to a minimum by taking advantage of newer and better voice command technology, minimizing the need for the driver to take their attention away from steering and situational awareness. The design process behind minimizing distraction centres around driver “workload”. A driver can only handle so much workload at one time so the more resources your brain can commit to driving as opposed to finding the radio station that’s playing Vanilla Ice or the Spice Girls, the better off and safer you are.
