Car enthusiasts everywhere now have the opportunity to experience the thrill of racing the new Ford GT, even if they aren’t one of the lucky few to own Ford’s hot new supercar. Ford announced the release of Supercar Challenge, a free, downloadable video game that lets car enthusiasts get behind the wheel of today’s hottest production cars in three rich, virtual racing environments.

The new game, available for download at www.fordvehicles.com (opens in a new window), offers players the opportunity to race through a progressively difficult challenge structure of time trials, head-to-head competitions and multicar circuit races across nine tracks within three sections of a city. Gamers will experience the thrills and performance of the Ford Focus ST, Mustang and Ford GT.

"Due to the success of fordvehicles.com, we know that consumers are turning to the Web in greater numbers to research their next automobile purchase," says Marty Collins, Ford Division general marketing manager.

"Supercar Challenge provides Ford with a unique opportunity for consumers to spend more time with our brand and our products while extracting an element of fun in their search for their next cool new car."

A key feature of the game is the "challenge structure," in which players have to win races through a combination of speed and driving skill in order to earn important upgrades to their cars and to move on from the Focus ST to the Mustang and ultimately to the Ford GT. With all races set to a global leaderboard system, enthusiasts will be able to post their scores against other competitors as they progress through the "challenge structure."

"We recognize that we need to reach and engage the next generation of automotive consumers, and downloadable games have proven to be a successful ways to achieve this," says Collins. "By delivering a console quality game across an easily accessible network like the Internet, we will be reaching both our core target audience as well as the car buyers of tomorrow."