Ford GT40 crushed the Ferrari at Le Mans in the 60’s but 20 years later it was still Ferraris and Porsches winning the sales with highly profitable sports cars. In the domestic market the Corvette was also a great success though it never offered the same quality or feel as its European rivals. It looked like Ford was just letting go of a great opportunity to grab some profits with their own sports car.
Behind closed curtains Ford's very own Specialty vehicle operations (SVO) decided to work on creating a fast mid-engined sports car that would compete with the other fast European premium sports cars but at the price of a Corvette. The project started in late 1983 with the code name GN34. The project would use resources from around the world with Italian styling, British chassis engineering, European assembly standards and would also boast of the built tough reliability. The full details of this project was never fully revealed until 2022. The project was initiated when a market analyst at Ford showed that the sales of the G-segment dedicated to sports cars would jump in the early 90’s from roughly 80k to 120k in the US market alone. The segment had a diverse range of offerings from the small little Toyota MR-2 to the Ferrari Testarossa roughly from 15,000 USD to 70,000 USD. The Chevrolet Corvette sat right in the middle which was making the highest profits as well.
SVO projected a required budget of 170 million USD and also stated that it could be returned four times over. The higher-ups listened and by 84 they had a green-light and an initial budget. The target was to have a working prototype by 86 and go into production by late 88 as an 89 model.
SVO engineers were persistent that it should be a mid-engined sports car, however they had the difficult task of battling the plan of a two front-engined coupe counter proposals based on the European Sierra, which would have been cheaper to make but would defeat the intention of being the most substantial product in the G-segment.
In 1984 they were scouting for a body design that would suit the car's intent, 3 members from the Ford team landed in Turin Italy to meet with Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign. For Ford's luck Italdesign was already working on a sports car concept now known as Maya. The name Maya comes from Sanskrit and translates to a form of illusion. Ford was extremely happy with the design and quickly worked on the contracts with Giugiaro, and subsequently SVO sent over a 3.0-liter V-6 Taurus powertrain. When the car was displayed in Turin Motor in 1984 it was a running concept.
There was one large issue after the car's unveil, it was that the car looked very similar to the Lotus Etna concept, a car designed by Italdesign for Lotus as a replacement for the Esprit, sadly due to Lotus’ financial woes this car never made it to production. The stylistic changes suggested by Ford lead to the new concept known as Maya 2 ES and Maya 2 EM. The former retained the same lines as the Maya but were much smoother and Ford had requested central air intakes like the ones found on Ferrari’s. The Maya 2 ES was developed as a styling model and was even painted in a shade of Ferrari red. The Maya 2 EM was more of a mechanical prototype/ spare car created to test production feasibility. This prototype had a centrally mounted Ford 6 V 3 litres, 300 hp bi-turbocharged engine.
Despite this massive Progress in terms of styling, Ford's internal styling studio in Detroit and even Ghia in Italy were in a race to submit their design proposals. In August of 1985 there was a small beauty contest of sorts held to judge all the three proposals from Ghia, Italdesign and Ford international design studio. Except the Maya 2 by Italdesign the other two cars from Ghia, and Ford international design studio were sent to a research clinic in California. The cars were all painted in red. The Ford international design studio car had a Targa roof, leaner surfaces and better outward visibility when compared to the Maya 2. In the case of Ghia’s concept the car had a tougher look when compared to the Maya 2.
The cars were to be judged by a focus group of potential buyers who would view the concepts side by side with a Nissan 300ZX, Porsche 944, Ferrari 308 and a corvette. The focus group selected the Ghia concept as the winner, even told it was Ford the participants still preferred it to the Ferrari. They valued it at $38,000 (roughly $100,000 today) against Ford's intended price of $26,500.
After this victory Ford further refined the Ghia GN34 concept, and made it longer and leaner adding more space to store the Targa top along with some additional luggage as well. The GN34 was also an excellent package for a mid engined car with good interior space as well.
The GN34 was set to have a Yamaha developed V6 engine that was developed for the Taurus SHO, since it was not yet ready, they fitted it with a twin-turbo Ford V-6 and ZF five-speed gearbox. Around the same time Italdesign also delivered a test mule in September of 1985.
Ford had always planned to launch the car with a V6, and Yamaha had developed a well refined 3.6L engine and the GN34 would receive Ford's new 4.6-liter modular DOHC V-8 and all-wheel drive as part of a mid-life update. They wanted it to not be to Corvette like right from the launch.
Moving from the looks to now handling Ford chose to consult Canewdon Consultants in Essex, England who gave the GN34 an unrivalled spec for the time. The Formula 1 champion Jackie Stewart also drove the Ford concept and confirmed that the car had serious potential.
The Ford GN34 prototype according to Ron Muccioli “had a flat and measured ride and took the handling track's corners as well as any competitor. We all felt we could meet or exceed all the best-in-class targets." Ron Muccioli would later work on the Roushe test mules of the GN34 which were going to be the high performance versions, one having a V6 and the other car having the Windsor V8. It was a small block V8 which was in production from 1961 to 2000.
In total there were 4 running test mules and 4 fibreglass and clay models. One might ask why wasn’t this car launched then? Since it had so much potential, the project was killed by
Bob Lutz who ironically was Ford executive team's biggest car enthusiast, for another project proposal. The car that would replace the G34 concept would be a new sport utility vehicle which was pitched during a review meeting on July 16, 1986. Bob Lutz previously was heading the Ford Europe division in the early 80’s and later on managed Ford's truck division in Detroit. The board chose to invest in a 4X4 concept that would appeal to 100s and 1000s of regular customers rather than producing a halo car of just 20,000 units. At the same time a currency fluctuation saw a rise in costs of importing parts from Europe to the US and was causing an increase in project cost. The Ford Explorer went on sale in 1990 and the GN34 project was killed on August 27, 1986, all work was stopped. It was a brave move by Ford but if they had actually put this car into production then they had the potential to give Porsche a run for their money. With larger production scales and better engine options, they were something that one would aspire for, but it was sacrificed in order to garner more profits. It now remains as a cool and less known Ford project. It was definitely fun to research and uncover details about the GN34 project and all its technical details while writing this Blog.
Very detailed write up! Interesting read and shows a lot of research done on the topic!
ReplyDeleteI am surprised how many more such projects within Ford has got scuttled due to internal politics. This after having winners on their plate. The India operations is also one such example, JLR is another one. The list can go on.
ReplyDeleteA very detailed blog , informative too. Keep it going.
Wow very detailed write up. Deep insight on particular model. As usual look forward to more blogs in future 👍🏼
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