The secret Fords the company very nearly made

It covered the design of each European Ford from the early ’70s through to the mid-’80s. He’s now published a new book, which picks up the story through to the early 2000s. The first book clearly impressed Ford; the design team offered to scan nearly 6,000 never-seen images for Volume Two. We asked him to share five of their secrets.

Google ‘Ford GN34’ and you’ll find rumours of this car, but no photos. This was Ford’s almost-mythical, never-seen challenger to the Honda NSX. It aimed far higher than being merely Ford’s Corvette, despite matching the GM car on price – see it as a Ferrari 328 rival at Porsche 944 money. The body was designed in Turin by Ford’s Ghia studio in preference over a competing one from the Detroit studio and another by Italdesign.

It was sophisticated under the slinky Italian skin too. The British-designed chassis was powered by the famous Ford-Yamaha SHO V6 through a ZF transaxle and tested on the track – in secret of course – by Jackie Stewart. It could have been one of the greats but Ford, quite wisely, saw that the upcoming SUV market would be far more profitable – so instead of this supercar they invested in making the Explorer. Good call, but you can’t help wonder…

The original Mondeo/Contour took an astonishing six years from the first sketches to the final car. Why did it take so long? Because it was such an important car and the Cologne-based designers needed to create something that appealed to four-door loving Americans as much as hatchback-buying Europeans. The idea was that Americans might pay a little more for a car with European flair and quality, while we got to buy the Sierra replacement at a slightly lower price because of the greater economies of scale.

Therefore, Mondeo was designed first as a four-door – and maybe that’s no bad thing judging by this car. This tough-looking machine was the runner-up design to the slippery, but slightly bland, design selected over it in preference.

Ford enthusiasts get misty-eyed at the thought of a Cosworth-powered Escort or Focus and this one might have been one of the best. Back in the early 2000s, Ford planned on a two tier-strategy of fast Focuses – an ST210 and an AWD monster engineered by Prodrive to take on the 300bhp Subaru WRX. Cosworth were commissioned to design the 210 and 300bhp engines – at a time when the ST sported a mild 170bhp and the turbocharged RS made 220bhp. 

So 210bhp from a Cosworth’s naturally aspirated DOHC Duratec four-cylinder engine would have made it an epic performer – with an even fruitier Focus RS Cosworth above it. But plans changed when Ford bought Volvo and their five-cylinder engine became available instead.

When Ford of Europe launched the new Escort in 1991, Autocar and other magazines were unsparing in their criticism of it. Ford was shocked to its core and vowed to do more than better, it vowed to make the Focus the absolute best. Behind the scenes there was a lot of thought about what to do – reskin the Escort or start afresh. One star in Ford’s range was the Puma designed by Ian Callum – thoughts turned towards tapping into Puma’s magic. 

This was one of the 1994 ideas from that program – codenamed CE99 – if Puma had had a four-door sister, then this would be it. But, when the American arm of Ford joined forces with the Europeans everyone across Ford’s world decided it was better to start afresh rather than reskin the Escort. This slippery-looking thing was cast aside, and the Focus kicked off.

Long ago, before SUVs ruled the earth, there was an emergent category of road-biased 4x4s like the Land Rover Freelander. Ford boss Jac Nasser wasn’t going to let Land Rover or competing Japanese brands gobble-up market share and instructed the Ghia studio to find a solution. Their inspiration – if you can’t guess by the colour – was a vehicle of JCB-like, go-anywhere toughness. The Italians made two full-sized clay models and this one was Jac’s favourite.

Ghia’s special skill was to make one-off, full-drivable prototypes. They carefully picked apart a mid-’90 Escort RS2000 4x4, then rebuilt it as a vehicle called the Alpe and painted it metallic olive, rather than JCB yellow. The compact off-roader looked fresh but murky green wasn’t a good colour for it. The vehicle was displayed twice but after Ford bought Land Rover in 2000 it was never seen again.

Mass manufacturers had made large executive cars for decades. But, as the new millennium dawned, the prestige German brands were beginning to dominate. Ford had to choose, did it launch a replacement Scorpio based on the Mondeo – or a 2+2 coupe based off the family car? Ford’s German design team was tasked with creating something every bit as graceful as a Mercedes. They succeeded too, in a greatest-hits style of German premiumness.

This Scorpio might look the part, but it would have been too expensive to lengthen the Mondeo wheelbase and widen out its body. The Mondeo was an excellent car, but using it as a base to challenge the BMW 5 Series was a stretch too far.

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