How close did Ford come to having the Probe become the next-generation Mustang?
It was thisclose, says Jack Telnack, head of worldwide design for Ford Motor Co.
Telnack, in town for a promotional blitz of the 1994 Mustang with local Mustang Club members, as well as a visit with the Midwest Automotive Media Association to show off the new car that goes on sale Dec. 9, said the rear-wheel-drive sports coupe got a last-second reprieve before being ousted for the Probe.
“We had the Mustang name embossed in metal ready to put on the car when finally our people listened to existing Mustang owners and the media, who both were telling us not to do it,” he said.
And if the Probe had become the Mustang when it was introduced in May of 1988 as a 1989 model?
“We would have suffered eternal damnation,” Telnack said.
Probe is nice, but in the realm of muscle cars, it’s a fern.
“Mustang owners wanted a rear-wheel-drive sports coupe with a 5-liter, V-8 engine that looked American and not Japanese or European,” he said, while the Probe is a front-wheel-drive sports coupe powered by a 4-cylinder or V-6 that tends to look Japanese-being built alongside the Mazda MX6 sports coupe at Mazda’s Flat Rock, Mich., assembly plant.
Jaguar geography: A U.S. built Jaguar?
“If Mercedes-Benz and BMW can build here, why not Jaguar?” says Telnack when asked whether the British luxury carmaker owned by Ford might not someday be assembled here to avoid currency fluctuations that force costs and therefore prices higher.
“Jaguar sales are up around the world, Ford has had a positive impact on the company, and the quality is now excellent. I’m not saying we’d have to transfer the whole operation here, maybe just one model,” Telnack said.
But, Telnack insists, “I would never make a Jaguar look like a Ford; I would never Fordize a Jaguar even if it was built in the U.S.”
Enough air bags: Now that most cars offer dual air bags, or will within a year, how soon will we see side-door or rear-seat air bags?
“When the government mandates them,” Telnack replied.
“Actually, I’m not sure if it’s 1998 or 1999, but there’s a law on the books requiring us to increase the amount of padding in the side doors, roof pillars and roof rail (metal directly above the doors). To add the padding, we are going to have to raise roof lines by one to two inches.”
Sounds like the government may favor added padding rather than added air bags.
Aero to stay: We’ve seen the boxy look, the wedge and the aero look in car design. What’s next?
“Aero is here to stay and won’t go away after we learned that by using aero we also can improve fuel economy,” Telnack said.
“But you will see a proportional change in the look of cars in the future with hoods and decks getting shorter. The body will become teardrop or egg-shaped for a single piece look. And there will be even more interior room,” he said.
So what will cars look like? Just so happened Telnack had photos on hand of the Aston Martin Lagonda Vignale. “The name is longer than the car,” Telnack quipped.
The four-door Vignale sedan, previewed at the Geneva Auto Show this year, is a concept of a future luxury car and if Aston Martin doesn’t produce the vehicle, it sure would look nice with a Mark IX or X or XI after its name for those who complain the VIII two-door coupe is only two doors away from being a viable alternative to the Lexus or Infiniti sedans.
Of course, it would look good with a Continental name badge on it, too.
The Vignale is interesting, too, because it features an all-aluminum body, and the Big Three have projects under way to come up with a rustproof, lightweight aluminum body that would help luxury cars get more mileage should the government crack down on fuel economy laws. And the aluminum would be recyclable.
As for the Vignale, power is supplied by a V-12 engine designed to shut off some cylinders under light loads to conserve fuel and then return to full power when needed, such as to pass or climb a hill.
Other features include 19-inch tires for greater road-holding ability, a steering wheel that moves toward the dash when the driver’s door is open to allow ease of exit and then returns to its regular position when the door is closed, on-board satellite navigation system, touch controls to open/close doors, as well as gear shift selector setting, power down/up desk tops with built in laptop computers for both rear seat passengers and power rear seats.
Mark VIII ragtop: Ford has a convertible version of the Mark VIII coupe built and ready to go into mass production. Only trouble is, the folks in the Glass House who have the authority to say yea or nay haven’t said anything as yet, according to Telnack.
“Every dealer wants one and we have the tooling to do a limited production model. A lot of our internals have been talking about one, but at the moment there are no plans,” he said.
You may recall that the original concept car displayed on the auto show circuit in 1992 before evolving into the Mark VIII in the 1993 model year was a convertible called the Marque X.
The tops: To get the optional removable hardtop that slips over the convertible top on the 1994 Mustang, you must order the convertible with that top though it won’t be available for a few months, according to Telnack.
“There’s a slightly different header on the convertible that takes the hardtop,” he said. “If you order the regular convertible it doesn’t have the header that will accept the hardtop.”
Telnack is fond of the Mustang, the present and past version.
“I was involved in the design of the wheelcovers for the original Mustang,” Telnack boasts. “I must have done a good job because a lot of them were stolen.”
Not yet: If Chrysler decides to put the two-sea Prowler roadster into production, how soon will Ford bring out a ’30s type roadster of its own?
“We don’t have one in the works,” Telnack said.
