Who wants a barn find? (repost from 2016)

"phenotyp" (phenotyp) 02/18/2019 at 09:45 • Filed to: Sketch, ford, concept

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I was transferring some old work from CD to HDD last night, and came across a folder of Ford designers’ proposals for NAIAS 2005.

A few years ago, I !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! some !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the same era (the last one being one of my all-time favorites— Mustang on GT platform).

Some would look great today, some... maybe not so much. A fun look back at a snapshot of the Ford design staff was thinking about back in 2003. The way it worked was that each designer got 4 pages in Powerpoint: intro, synopsis, image board, and sketch. I didn’t strip the names from the pages that had them in the sketch, but I’m only calling out a couple of the people I knew.

Kyle Evans’s 2Duece is pretty damn sweet, I think. You might recognize his name !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Also love Kevin George’s cab-over coupe beast.

Two proposals from Bill Mangan, probably best-known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

OK. That was a longer post than I’d thought.

dsgolson > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 16:40

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This is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 16:41

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Picture one needs to be cleaned up and released as a Mercury Cougar. Don’t tell me about how Mercury is dead ‘cause I ain’t listenin’.

Chariotoflove > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 16:48

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Way cool, thanks!

OCD-CO > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 16:53

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YES!!!!!!!!!!

not for canada - australian in disguise > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 16:56

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These are amazing and Ford needs to make all of them RIGHT NOW.

Urambo Tauro > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:02

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This is a great example of why Kinja’s image annotations need to come back.

phenotyp > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/04/2016 at 17:02

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It seems more Capri to me than the one that’s supposed to be a Capri.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:03

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Every one of these is great, save for the awful attempt at a mild modernization of the ‘36 Cab. Oi vey, that’s bad.

Thanks for sharing, as usual.

phenotyp > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/04/2016 at 17:09

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Some are pretty dreadful, really. But super interesting to see what designers wanted to see at the big show, back in 2003. Kinda surprised that there weren’t more truck concepts.

iSureWilll > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:10

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Very cool.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:16

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They’re all fascinating to meat the very least, that’s from a time period when I was really interested in car design as a coming-of-age kid, so I was always clamoring through the car rags for stuff like that (Motor Trend’s former annual design comp comes to mind). All of that really slab-sided design has stuck with me after all this time, I’m still super into it, even dated as some of it looks.

phenotyp > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/04/2016 at 17:18

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Remember this one?

Still love it.

slipperysallylikespenguins > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:35

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oooh, I love design sketches, thanks for posting them. It’s really cool to see an inside look

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:43

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Absolutely I do, that’s what kept popping up in my head looking at all of the ones you showed above. Went and looked it up, I can’t believe that debuted at NAIAS 2007, I could have sworn it was earlier. For some reason that and the GR-1 are really intertwined in my head.

Still love the Interceptor, would have been extra cool to see put into production, but not at all surprised that it didn’t see the light of day. It makes almost no sense at all today.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 17:49

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#1:

phenotyp > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/04/2016 at 17:53

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It was: the 427 was 2003. The interceptor was 07, and the GR-1 was 04. I have sketches of that one around, too.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > phenotyp 02/04/2016 at 21:17

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Ah, okay, that all makes sense. I thought I had remember being mildly tickled at seeing that styling trickle down to the production 500 and something about that timeline wasn’t working out.

phenotyp > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/04/2016 at 21:23

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427 (RWD, V8) —> Fusion (FWD, 4/6 cyl) is one of the sadder translations from concept to production.

phenotyp > slipperysallylikespenguins 02/05/2016 at 09:51

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Cheers! No sense in hiding them away on a hard drive, it’s not like they’re secret anymore.

phenotyp > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 02/05/2016 at 10:00

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Four years before Chrysler did it.

wbizarre - OEM fetishist > phenotyp 02/18/2019 at 10:19

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Thanks for posting these! Really interesting, and I like that era of concept cars at Ford: a kind of “slab retro”. Did Bill Mangan’s proposals morph into the Ford Flex?

phenotyp > wbizarre - OEM fetishist 02/18/2019 at 10:26

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Totally “slab retro.” That era at Ford was all about Gillette-looking stuff, black sedans, and big trucks.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > phenotyp 02/18/2019 at 10:38

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That RS200 sketch is amazing. 

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/18/2019 at 10:41

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I’m getting more of a Tonrino vibe from it, 

punkgoose17 > phenotyp 02/18/2019 at 10:50

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Very cool. I was reminded of the Ford Faction from 2004, which seems to be a concept always in the back of my head.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > phenotyp 02/18/2019 at 13:00

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Not too shabby!

I like the cab- over and the van.