Features

This is far from over. We're back cruising the neon-lit boulevards, back basking in the sultry air in an open-topped supercar, a pulsing Latino beat ever present in the back-ground as nightclub revellers spill out into the road.

Surely jet lag should be kicking in, with eyelids collapsing shut like a narcoleptic's and strange hallucinations following soon after?

Only, this is no ordinary night. We're vividly awake, circling Miami Beach in a ridiculously low, dramatically curvaceous piece of exotica, a car even scarcer and more exclusive than a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder - yet that wears a far humbler badge on its bonnet. This is the one and only convertible Ford GT in existence.

Sitting alongside is Kip Ewing, an engineering supervisor with Ford's Special Vehicle Team and the man behind this silver-striped, sulphurous orangey yellow creation. He has become well used to such sleep deprivation.

"This has been my night project, off the radar, carried out in my own time," he says. "In the last three weeks of building the car, I found myself averaging only 16 hours sleep a week."

Away from Ewing's day job of engineering US fast Fords like the existing GT and the new Shelby GT500 Mustang, he donated six months' worth of weekends and evenings to preparing his freshly decapitated GT project car for its debut at last November's SEMA tuning show in 'Vegas.

"Production of the GT as we know it is due to come to an end in September," he explains.

"I wanted to see what could be done with it next - and to protect my career prospects. Ford is in survival mode at the moment. Car manufacturers can become very conservative at such times, just when they should be being seen to be bold. There are a lot of engineers banking on keeping Ford in the supercar business."

Ewing's suggested antidote couldn't be much louder, visually or aurally. Alongside a thunderous Borla low-restriction exhaust system, the ride height has been dropped by 25mm, a nostalgic set of Halibrand-style 19 front and 20 rear alloys has been bolted on, and a shade of paint chosen that can't be found in any Ford brochure.

He says: "I painted four model GTs in non-stock colours and couldn't work out which I preferred, so put them in front of my 15-month-old son Lucas and let him decide."