Men Free Blog

A little over two years ago we had the chance to spend some time at the track with Steve Millen and his race-prepped Ford GT before the team embarked on its fifth excursion to New Zealand to run in the Targa Rally.

Last year, the team wasn’t able to compete due to health issues with a member of the Stillen consortium, but this year they’re back and the orange GT is meaner than ever.

For the 2006 campaign, Stillen built up the Ford GT in a few months, equipping the mid-engine supercar with a performance exhaust, catalytic converter delete pipes, AP Racing front brakes, Penske shocks, a full cage and MOMO racing seats and harnesses. This year, they’ve tweaked the suspension, upgraded the brakes front and rear, added a set of Nordskog gauges and a GPS speedometer, along with pulling a few more ponies out of the supercharged 5.4-liter V8 and sending the additional grunt through an AP Racing clutch and a lower final drive ratio.

The Stillen Ford GT will battle it with everything from Evos to Porsches over 38 stages run on closed public roads, and according to Millen’s navigator, they’ll be providing updates throughout the race.

Check out the Stillen website for more, and be sure to peruse both our original gallery of the GT testing at Willow Springs and these latest images, courtesy of Stillen.

The Ford GT is on the short list of coolest cars in the 21st century, with up to 600 horsepower, killer retro looks, and Ferrari F430-beating athleticism. Buyers were more than happy to accept a limited edition Ford supercar, but many owners were less than thrilled with Ford’s corporate key and fob. While it sounds a bit petty, sharing a key with an F-150 just doesn’t scream exotic track star.

The creative key kit crafters over at ExotiCARe have remedied the situation with a limited edition kit that turns your pedestrian keys into a car starter worthy of a Ford GT. The easy to install kit is nothing more than silver-finish covers for your existing keys, which doesn’t exactly seem like $295 well-spent, but for those who can afford a $175,000 sports car it may be a deal. ExotiCARe is only making 350 of the kits, so there is an exclusivity factor, as well. Is $295 too much for nothing more than key decoration that you have to assemble yourself? You tell us after the jump. Thanks for the tip, Andrew!
[Source: ExotiCARe]