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Prototype T-Bird?

7K views 31 replies 21 participants last post by  Grog6 
#1 ·
Does anyone know if Ford ever made/sold a T-Bird supercoupe with a Cobra, Prototype motor in it? Or at least a 4.6L Supercharged motor? My uncle was telling me about a 92-93ish Supercoupe he had that had a 4.6L supercharged engine (cobra motor). Saying it was a prototype and Ford only made a few... and when he traded it in to the dealer, they were really suprised. The dealer mechanic looked at it and said thats what it was. He ended up getting like $12,000'ish in trade value towards it. Is he mistaking it for a V6 supercharged like all the supercoupes? Or did Ford really make these cars?
 
#2 ·
Note: My uncle never, intentionally makes stuff up. But he could just be mistaken. But the trade value is what suprised me, if thats what the dealer gave him for it. He traded this car in years ago... probably when the car was a few years old?
 
#4 ·
Very true. I even said that to him, if he was sure it wasn't a V6. He swore up and down it was a V8. I remember seeing the car as a kid. Was real sharp and looked like new. Didn't pay attn to the engine/sound of it. He said it "hauled ass" though lol. I dunno. I was just curious.
 
#5 ·
Smells fishy to me, for tons of reasons. No disrespect intended toward your uncle, at all, but I've known a number of guys with the tendency to exaggerate in that same manner. I'd be willing to bet it was a garden variety SC (although even a garden variety SC is pretty slick) with the help of an active imagination, bet he'll make an awesome Grandpa :)
 
#6 ·
I know they made prototype Thunderbird SVT's, but I don't recall if they were supercharged. I know they had the 4.6 liter though. They were built on an SC body I believe. I think I was told they made 3 prototypes before Ford canned the project. This was back in 95. I believe only two of the three are still in existence. But again, this is only going by what I have heard from various sources. If they did exist they were certainly never sold at dealers.
 
#7 · (Edited)
There where 3 or 4 prototypes built for the SVT thunderbird. This car was built off a 94-95, with 96-97 side cladding & rear bumper, and the front bumper was a 96-97 front, however, it had foglight openings in the corners. The car also had a cowl hood and 95 headlights. Also, there where cobra R type wheels on it...which can be purchased from the ford racing catalog--the car really was close to production, real close...but it didn't happen. The car had a DOHC 4.6 with a roots blower on it (03 cobra) and a manual transmission. It was not built off of a supercoupe, however. Ford canned the project sometime around 97. If you look in the "fleet of fame" section, there are motortrend articles (and other magazine articles) about the car. The (former) head of SVT has one of them--at least he DID a few years ago. IIRC SirWilliam said that he knew where "the other one" was located--he never said anything else.

Because these cars where prototypes, none where released to the public....there is that one, possibly two that still exist, however, it is unlikely that uncle had any of the actual prototypes. I suppose he could have supercharged a 4.6 tbird....keep in mind the 4.6 didn't come out until 94...he's probably thinking of a supercoupe.




If you look at the red car you see the following:
SHO rear spoiler
96-97/SC tail lights
Cobra R type wheels
94-95 rear bumper
96-97 side cladding
96-97 front bumper, the way they should have made them, with foglight holes
94-95 headlights
Cobra R type hood, setup for 94-95 headlights
94-95 door handles.
 
#11 ·
let me clear some things up. there was never a SVT tbird, it never got out of the special vehicle engenering stages so it was still a SVE car. second there were 5 built, 2 still remain as of the last time i talked to my inside source. they never had a blower on them. john coletti (head of svt at the time) took one of them after the program was cancelled and he had the supercharger put on.
 
#12 ·
Interesting--is there any way you could get photos of the car? A decent write up would be cool--I mean, themustangsource.com (I think that's who) was able to get an interview with Coletti--maybe TCCoA could do the same for the SVE bird, eh?
 
#13 ·
If you want one of these you'll have to build your own... :D
 
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#21 ·
John, in no way, built cars for SVE, SVT, or Ford. He did a lot of work with Ford on the powertrain side, but I am not familiar with exactly sure what his role was. I knew he had two of every engine that Ford produced.

We added the supercharger to the DOHC Thunderbird prototype at Coletti's request at Roush Building 14 in Allen Park. The car was never fully developed because of the costs to go into production and the tremendous wheel-hop that the car suffered from.

John Moore
Former SVE Engineeer
 
#17 ·
I don't remember any prototype Bird's/cougar's in those years with a 4.6L Not saying that it isn't possible. I do remember that mag article about the bird that nearly was.
 
#24 ·
It's awesome that some if these guys are still around, Please post more History; You have an enthusiastic audience here. :)
 
#25 ·
Seems like everyone has had wheelhop problems when they get more hp. IIRC, Ron tamed his with air lifts inside the coils, but IDK. He had some awesome pix of a twisted off axle, lol.
It's kinda cool to be going down the same path y'all went down. But it's a lot different doing one vs doing 100k cars.
 
#26 ·
I find it strange that the mark 8s didn't have a wheel hop problem with basically the same engine the SVE were supposed to be produced with ( the NA version ) .. aside from the manual transmission, the prototypes didn't have anything besides eibach springs to lower them.
 
#27 ·
I think the manual trans was it, my car always had a wheel hop problem even with the auto with the collapsed IRS bushing hardware but it was really bad when I had a clutch to dump. Replacing those, adding preload to the rubber and swapping the control arm and knuckle bushings to poly all helped. I have airlift bags too but I didn't put them in to cure wheel hop.
 
#29 ·
These cars love sticky wheels, that's for sure. BFG Sports cured my front end push, lol. It would understeer badly in corners. The new tires cornered better than the gopro, lol. It slammed the wall so hard it killed the chip in the sdhc card, lol. I have a device called a bus pirate, you use to program and read chips. The chip was dead internally. The Samsung rep I talked to said it must have taken over 500 g's to break the bond wires, which are embedded in epoxy. :) I sent it to them, they were curious, not many people failed one. I kept my business card collection from my engineering days. :) They won't sample me chips like they used to, but I still get new chips to play with. Analog Devices and Linear Technology built chips for us; I needed a +- 50V powered opamp, and now they each sell one. :) For shits and giggles, I built an audio amp out of one. If I can get it stable, it would be a great amp; right now it eats speakers when the transistors get too hot. Thankfully, I have a stack of old stock speakers.
 
#30 ·
I can only compare what I was running. 275/60-15 M/T ET streets and M/T 9x30-15 radial slicks. Never in 20 years have I had wheel hop.

Big bore, 5000 stall, 4:10 and $:56 gears

Possibly check those short sidewalls.

Also stock suspension, no airbags.
 
#32 ·
I remember, Ron. Did you see Mikey's post about the Cobra shafts? Apparently, they can work.
 
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