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The Ford GT's windshield will be Gorilla Glass, just like your smartphone screen

The Ford GT's windshield will be Gorilla Glass, just like your smartphone screen

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The new Ford GT supercar will be full of fancy technology. A twin-turbo engine. Carbon fiber everything. And, thanks to a partnership with Corning, a windshield built with Gorilla Glass, the same tech that's used to keep your smartphone screen intact (unless you drop it on concrete).

The special multilayered hybrid windshield (combining multiple types of glass) will be used on both the windshield and rear engine cover on the GT, for both increased lightness — very important in a track-focused supercar — and a tougher, more scratch-resistant window. Layered glass is also used to make windshields shatter-resistant, so that glass doesn't go everywhere in a crash.

For the Ford GT, triple-layered glass is the trick: one part toughened automotive grade hybrid glass as an inner layer; an "advanced noise-absorbing thermoplastic interlayer" in the middle, and an annealed outer glass layer. What's it all mean? Glass that's 32 percent lighter than in similar cars, while being more resistant to damage thanks to Corning's advanced glassmaking tech.

It's 25 to 50 percent thinner, at just 3 to 4 millimeters, and at least as strong as traditional laminate glass. Like many technologies that start in supercars and make their way to more affordable vehicles — paddle shifters and carbon fiber parts, for instance — we could see this Gorilla Glass in more affordable cars, as Ford and Corning work to bring the costs down.

Just don't drop your Ford GT onto concrete.