Ride in a 2005 Ford GT the Greatest Ford Design Ever ? Why Not!

Randy Smalley has owned his white 2005 Ford GT with blue stripes since it was new, and unlike a lot of owners who’ve kept their GTs parked as investments, he actually drives his. Lou Costabile caught up with him in the suburbs of Mesa, Arizona for a ride-along in what many Ford enthusiasts still call the best-looking car the company has ever built. Two decades on, this modern GT40 tribute is only becoming rarer to see used the way it was designed to be. Watch the full ride-along.

Some owners baby a car into a museum piece. Randy Smalley did the opposite. Since the day his white-with-blue-stripes 2005 Ford GT rolled off the dealer lot, he’s treated it less like a collectible and more like exactly what Ford engineered it to be, a road-legal racecar. That distinction matters more than it sounds, because plenty of 2005 and 2006 GT owners have spent two decades keeping their cars pristine and largely parked. What happens when Lou Costabile climbs into the passenger seat in the suburbs of Mesa, Arizona, says a lot about how Randy actually feels about the car he’s owned since new.

A Ford GT Bought to Be Driven, Not Displayed

The 2005 Ford GT was built as a modern tribute to the original GT40 that won Le Mans outright in the late 1960s, and Ford limited production to roughly 4,000 examples across the 2005 and 2006 model years specifically to keep the car exclusive. Most owners who bought one new understood exactly what they were getting: a genuine supercar with a mid-mounted supercharged V8, priced and built to be collectible from day one. Plenty of GT buyers in 2005 treated the car as an investment from the moment they signed the paperwork, storing it under a cover and only bringing it out for the occasional car show appearance. Randy’s approach, driving it regularly enough that a casual ride-along interview was even possible, cuts against that trend entirely.

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Why Enthusiasts Call It Ford’s Best Design

The 2005 GT’s styling draws directly from the original GT40’s proportions, low, wide, and purposeful, updated with modern details but clearly speaking the same visual language six decades later. That continuity is a big part of why so many Ford enthusiasts, including the owner in this video, consider it the best-looking car Ford has ever put into production, ahead of anything the Mustang or Shelby lineups produced in the same era.

My Car Story’s Approach to Owner Interviews

Lou Costabile’s My Car Story series has built its following around exactly this kind of conversation, sitting down with an owner in their own driveway or neighborhood rather than at a curated show, and letting the car’s actual daily relationship with its owner do the talking. Filming this GT in the suburbs of Mesa rather than at a concours event fits that approach, showing the car exactly where and how Randy actually uses it.

What a 2005 Ford GT Commands Today

With production capped near 4,000 units and demand from a new generation of collectors who grew up watching this exact model, well-maintained 2005 and 2006 Ford GTs now regularly sell for two to three times their original sticker price at auction. That appreciation curve makes an owner who still drives his regularly, rather than trailering it exclusively between shows, a genuinely rarer sight than the car itself.

A Legend That’s Still Just Getting Started

Twenty years after its release, the 2005 GT sits in an unusual position: old enough to be a genuine collector car, but young enough that most of its original owners, like Randy, are still around to talk about what it’s actually like to live with one. That window won’t stay open forever, which makes conversations like this one, filmed in an ordinary Mesa neighborhood rather than behind a velvet rope, worth paying attention to while they’re still happening.

There’s also something worth noting in how differently the GT is treated compared to its 1960s namesake. The original GT40 was built strictly to race and win at Le Mans, never intended for a public road at all, while the 2005 revival was always meant to be street legal and, at least in theory, drivable every day. Randy’s ownership approach essentially closes that gap, treating a car built for daily usability the way its race-bred ancestor was treated on a closed circuit, which is likely exactly the kind of ownership Ford’s engineers had in mind when they designed a modern supercar that wouldn’t need to live its whole life on a trailer.

Watch the full video and share your thoughts below.

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