America's lost supercar from Ford was actually lightyears ahead of Bugatti

The lost supercar from Ford, the GT90, was pitched as a rival to the likes of Bugatti back in the 1990s, and it wasn’t just marketing hype.

Conceived in secret and built in just months, the specs and ambition behind it were truly wild.

At a time when exotic cars like Bugatti were the benchmarks, the GT90 was the American carmaker’s way of showing it could compete at the highest level.

Yet despite its promise, the GT90 never made it to production, and for decades remained an automotive ‘what if.’

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Ford and the lost supercar that almost was

When Ford unveiled the GT90 at the 1995 Detroit Auto Show, it looked like a spaceship compared to other cars of the time.

Built by a small team at Ford’s Special Vehicle division, the project came together in just six months.

Parts were borrowed from another supercar Ford owned at the time, the Jaguar XJ220.

Under the sleek, triangular body was a monstrous V12 engine: that’s 12 cylinders, or twice as many as you’ll find in modern F1 cars.

Ford also added four turbochargers, which boosted the engine to an estimated 720hp and a top speed of over 250 miles per hour.

That would’ve made it faster than the Bugatti EB110, its main rival of the era.

The car was built from high-tech materials like carbon fiber and aluminum, and it even had heat shields similar to those used on space shuttles to keep the exterior from melting.

The GT90 was fast, but speed is not the only thing it had.

With talk of radar-assisted braking and early computer systems planned, it felt way ahead of its time.

This lost supercar from Ford wouldn’t have been profitable

So why didn’t it happen? In the mid-1990s, building a car this extreme would’ve cost Ford a fortune, and selling it for profit was nearly impossible.

The company also owned Aston Martin at the time, so launching another supercar might’ve caused competition within its own lineup.

The GT90 became more of a showpiece than a real product, but somehow, this isn’t even close to being Ford’s most interesting concept car.

The honor goes to the Ford Nucleon, a 1950s vehicle that would be powered by uranium rather than gasoline.

Suddenly, the GT90 doesn’t seem so out of place anymore.

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