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Ford GT is officially Ford's fastest production car ever

With a top speed of 216 mph, the Ford GT the fastest Blue Oval yet, and it just posted a lower lap time than the McLaren 675LT.

Tim Stevens Former editor at large for CNET Cars
Tim Stevens got his start writing professionally while still in school in the mid '90s, and since then has covered topics ranging from business process management to video game development to automotive technology.
Tim Stevens
Ford

We never had a doubt that the upcoming Ford GT would be a quick car, and now the company is finally giving us some real numbers to back that up. Ford has announced the official top speed for the 647 horsepower, 3,000 pound supercar. No surprise: it's well over 200 miles per hour.

The exact figure is 216, helped by the car's active rear wing and suspension, which allows the GT to optimize its drag for maximum speed when desired.

Ford GT looking so fresh, so clean in white (pictures)

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More important, though, is its speed around a circuit, and Ford has some numbers for us there, too. The road-going Ford GT posted a time of 2:09.8 seconds around the long, twisty and generally epic Calabogie Motorsports Park in Canada. In "identical conditions" and on fresh tires, the same test driver was able to clock a 2:10.88 in the hard-edged McLaren 675LT and a 2:12.9 in the similarly track-focused Ferrari 458 Speciale.

A second quicker than the 675LT? That's certainly something to be proud of, but there's still the question of what the car will be like to drive. For the answer to that, we're going to have to wait a little longer.

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