A journey lasting fifty years in the deepest corners of Ford. A beautiful piece of life even for a car manufacturer over a hundred years old, with its successes, its more or less memorable cars and those destined, for many different reasons, to never see the lights on the assembly line. It is precisely to the latter that theformer employee Steve Saxty he dedicated Secret Fords, two illustrated volumes that tell the story of models never born under the sign of the blue oval.
Born and raised in Essex, a few miles from Ford’s Dunton R&D center, Saxty accompanied the first steps of many prototypes with the eyes of a child, sharing the dream of seeing them one day transform into production cars with designers and engineers. An often shattered dream which, however, did not dent his love for Ford one iota. Which, for Saxty, made an exception, opening for the first time in its history all the drawers of his secret archives. The result is a unique and unrepeatable journey alongside an expert guide who digs, investigates and, page after page, gives the reader the tips, curiosity and background of a Ford little known to the general public. Below are the images of some Ford models that have never seen the light of day.
Under the jaunty Estate body this Ford Fiesta hides the mechanics of the racing Escort that will see the light in 1981. The image is taken from another book by Steve Saxty, The cars you always promised yourself, released two years ago and expected in a second edition in 2021.
In the mid-1980s Ford’s participation in Mazda could have led to the birth of a coupe called RS Coupé and derived from the model 323 of the Japanese house. The leaders of the blue oval identified the benchmark in the Volkswagen Scirocco and the Toyota Celica, but the ok for the sports car never came. Probably because, explains Saxty, Ford enthusiasts would not have looked favorably on a sports car born in a joint-venture with a foreign manufacturer.
At the end of the 90s the fashion for convertibles with a folding metal roof hit and Ford looked for a worthy replacement for the Escort convertible that had enjoyed so much success in the previous decade. Ideas also include that of “discovering” Puma and to create a sportier model along the lines of the Porsche Boxster. The ideas were brilliant but the company’s efforts were all concentrated on the development of the new Focus and so only a few pencil sketches will be made of both models.
Speaking of Ford discoveries, it is also necessary to resurrect from oblivion what should have been there at the dawn of 2000 Focus cabriolet. The idea was carried on for a while but at some point it became clear that there would be no room for such a car in the US market. To see a Focus without a roof had to wait until 2006, when on the European side of the blue oval house Pininfarina designed a convertible based on the second generation of the model.
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