When Ford brought back the GT in the mid-2000s, plenty of customers bought them and stuck them in garages to rest and appreciate in value. Thing is, if you’re going to hide a rare supercar away as an investment, you still have to take care of it. You can’t just let it rot in a dusty old garage for more than a decade because, if you do, it’ll look like this disgustingly moldy 2006 Ford GT, which was discovered and saved in this new video from VINwiki.
The interiors of most high-end cars are typically draped in leather, which is a perfect breeding ground for mold. If you keep such a car out of sun and away from sunlight for several years, the only thing you’re doing is creating a supremely luxurious biome. Admittedly, sometimes people fall under hard financial times, poor health, or a variety of circumstances that can lead to their precious cars being forgotten or neglected. So it’s not always the owner’s fault. The VINwiki video doesn’t explain why this particular Ferrari slayer was left to sit for 15 years under its own mold, though.
Getting into a mold-infested car to push it out of the garage requires hazard protection, which is why the two hosts donned painter’s suits, masks, and gloves before diving in. And infested it was. Since the Ford GT’s interior has a ton of leather and suede—on the seats, dashboard, door panels, shift boot, and even the rear bulkhead—there was mold everywhere. It almost looked like the cabin was covered in a white fuzzy carpeting. It’s enough to make some people nauseous.
Unfortunately, to get the car out of the driveway, they needed to get inside, to get it out of gear. The GT’s doors infamously won’t open if the battery is dead, and of course it was. So they had to get the hood open from the outside (the GT has an exterior hood release), and jump the battery. And while they shouldn’t have tried starting a high-strung supercar engine that had been sitting for 15 years without at least checking its fluids, it’s impressive that the GT started up after a few tries, even if it wasn’t firing on all eight cylinders. Personally, I would’ve just pushed it out of the garage.
Only 4,038 first-gen Ford GTs were ever built globally, so let’s be thankful that this one was saved. Hopefully its next owner won’t forget about it.
Got tips? Send ’em to tips@thedrive.com