Let’s face it. The 2020 Chicago Auto Show was a dud. There’s no hiding from the fact that the format needs changing because utter dullness won’t cut it anymore. Even so, some debuts managed to shine through all that murky water.

The Ford GT Liquid Carbon edition was one of them. Ford’s supercar made a surprise appearance in Chicago, packing 13 more horsepower, better cooling, and a naked-carbon-fiber guise that ups the ante on the GT’s appeal. Turns out, though, that flaunting that exposed carbon fiber also triples the Ford GT’s build time.

They say art demands sacrifice

In the Ford GT Liquid Carbon’s case, sacrifice equals time spent on the assembly line.

The reason? Those carbon fiber weaves must flow perfectly over the supercar’s body, which by the way, is made by hand in Markham, Ontario, by carbon-fiber shop Multimatic. What’s more, MotorTrend found out that “the plant’s full production capacity is devoted to making the GT, and there is a limited number of people who can do the painstaking work.”

This is backed up by Jeff Tanis, Multimatic’s director of global operations for niche vehicles, who admits that “there’s plenty of trial and error in the actual assembly,” hence the three-times-longer process, because perfectly aligning those weaves takes time as they’ll be the first thing people will notice about the Ford GT Liquid Carbon.

We don’t know exactly how many Liquid Carbon GTs Ford is planning to produce, and neither does Ford - the Blue Oval, however, estimates that it will churn out about a dozen Liquid Carbons each year starting with the spring of 2020. We know the Ford GT production ceases in 2022, so that’s about 50 naked-carbon units overall, give or take.

Offering this Liquid Carbon edition for the GT is a smart move on Ford’s behalf, one that works both ways. Coupled with the shy boost in power, the all-carbon body is bound to raise the supercar’s appeal but it also gives owners a sense of exclusivity since the body is handcrafted to its final shape.

Sure, Ford is no Pagani or Koenigsegg and will never be, for that matter, but it’s still nice to own something that’s been slowly cooked, so to say, instead of going the fast-food way. Expect the Ford GT Liquid Carbon to sell for around $750,000, because carbon fiber is still expensive as is handcrafting, while a regular GT should demand for roughly $500,000.