The Last Of The Ford Probe Concepts Could Have Made The Lowest, Slickest Mustang Ever

Guess what? The Ford Mustang is typically considered to be a “boomer” product, but the age of this car itself indicates that as a person it would be a GenXer. That’s right; 1965 is the first full year of the Pony car, and it’s often cited as the beginning birth date of the Slacker generation as well.

I fall into this small and misunderstood age group, and as with any person from this demographic, I’ve known the Mustang my entire life. I came home from the hospital maternity ward in a 1965 convertible (totally unrestrained and likely to fly out the windshield if my dad had hit anything, of course). Hot Wheels versions of the later, bigger, and more muscular ones were played with on the bedroom floor. My first memory of the Testor’s model glue scent was at the kitchen table building a 1/24 scale model of a Mustang II (model glue fumes- so that explains things!). Probably the first car magazine I purchased was a Motor Trend to read about the new Fox body ‘Stangs. Even as late as college, we thought about pitching in with the letter-writing campaign to keep the front-drive Probe from becoming the next Pony car.

Like all of us human Xers, the Mustang grew and changed to keep pace with the times. In retrospect, many find certain models too large (the 1971-73 models) or too small (the Mustang II) but in-period they were typically just what the market called for.

Over time things started to change. The Mustang became like a GenXer that used to go to those record stores in the city to get import vinyl from their favorite British alternative bands – bands that are now on nostalgia tours. Sure, the Mustang kept up a bit and listened to Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers in the nineties, eventually playing some Black Keys and Kings Of Leon during the 2000s, but generally speaking he still preferred to crank up some disaffected guy from Manchester whining about hanging a DJ.

Not that the Mustang wasn’t still cool, but by 1987 the most advanced-looking and Euro-enthusiast-oriented of Ford’s coupes was not the pony car but instead a turbocharged version of the elegant “beak bird.” To think that only a decade earlier the Thunderbird name had been applied to a sort-of-laughable luxo barge and now it was kicking the Mustang’s ass in the aero-tech department.

The 2005 SN197 signaled the time when the Mustang stopped even trying to adapt to the latest interpretation of what a sports coupe should be and just went straight down the retro path. Naturally, it’s slowly been updated over the last twenty years to stay rather current, but pure forward thinking is not part of the game plan.

With my latest series, I’ve explored a world where that didn’t happen, starting with the Mustang II of 1974. What if Ford had expanded the model lineup during the seventies and then kept the car at the cutting edge of design and technology throughout the eighties? Now as the nineties dawn in our timeline, our alternate reality looks once again at making some of the advancements Ford already had available into another Mustang that would have been anything but nostalgic. Let’s make our way back to 1992; we’ll steer clear of the great hurricane of South Florida plus the riots of LA and head to Dearborn.

Outfoxing The Fox

As I’ve pointed out before, the decline of the Mustang as an up-to-the-minute design seems to have started when the Ford “aero revolution” of the eighties by and large passed it by. This sea-change or design at the Blue Oval had its roots in some proof-of-concept show cars built in the early part of the decade by Ford-owned Ghia or Turin. Named the “Probe” series in the years before such a title made you giggle, I’ve used these cars as inspiration for different generations of alternative-timeline, futuristic-looking, Fox-body Mustangs.

First, I took the Probe 1 and massaged it (boy, that sounded wrong) into the angular-but-aero 1979 alternate Fox body model:

Probe II and III were used to make the Ford Sierra (and Merkur XR4Ti), so the Probe IV came next as a basis for a new 1986 super-slick (and still Fox chassis) ‘Stang hatchback:

Arguably the most dramatic of the Probes was the final 1985 iteration of the series, the Probe V. Ford now seemed to decide that making the most aerodynamic car was too damn easy and looked for more difficult targets to meet and exceed. Exceed they did: the Probe V’s drag coefficient of 0.137 reportedly was the equal to an F-15 fighter jet, a vehicle that doesn’t even have wheels.

The Probe V was powered by a transverse mid-engine to keep the nose low; unlike the earlier Probe concepts this version went full-on whiz-bang show car with sliding side doors that wrapped over the roof, as well as a sliding canopy over the engine.

The earlier Probes translated to production coupes relatively easily, but this thing is almost more aircraft than car. If I’m going to convert this thing into a new-for-1992 Mustang it’ll be a bit of challenge, to say the least.

More Sally Ride Than “Ride, Sally, Ride”

Essentially what we have to do is look at the overall shape of the Probe V and try to stay as true to that as possible to this formed-in-a-wind-tunnel design as we make it into a real car. First, the Jetsons shit sadly has to go. The sliding doors, moving rear canopy with clear “Tatra” fin, all-glass roof, and skirts we removed from the earlier Probes will get discarded here as well. The tall, peaked roof will get lowered, and the complex windshield that goes nearly horizontal at its base will give way to more traditional glass and a grey/black cowl trim to simulate the look. The ultra-long tail that’s great for aero (but not so good for a Walgreens parking lot) needs to be trimmed slightly. But overall, if you overlaid the Probe V over this 1992 ProbeStang V, you’d have pretty much the same shape, including the sort of “Coke bottle” profile from the top. A very prominent lump on the hood to clear the V8 (or smaller engines) will be needed, but it adds some character. Naturally, we’ll never get to that 0.137 drag coefficient but it will be worlds apart from the standard Fox.

Ah, but this is more than just any car; we need to at least include some basic visual touchstones to be sure that there’s Mustang DNA in this super-aero coupe. The Probe V’s rear engine cooling inlets will work as vestigial Mustang “side scoops”, while body-colored trim and simulated vents on the “C” pillar pick up on the Mustang look (and differentiate it from fastback F-body Firebirds and Camaros). Composite lights always seem to lack personality, so the front of the ProbeStang V will feature clear-covered lights that still recall four-shot sealed beams; a chrome smoothed-out Mustang logo sits on the clear “grille” area. Note that like the earlier Probe IV Mustang I proposed, there’s an opening air intake in the lower bumper that can automatically allow more cooling when needed. The five-spoke wheels might still have optional flush covers in the Probe tradition, but I doubt many Mustang owners would care that much about the added drag reduction.

The Kamm tail of the Probe could remain nearly unchanged but for the ProbeStang; I’ve simply installed very Mustang-looking three-bar taillights and hidden backup lights in the lower grille. Of course, there would be a convertible version as well:

My wife saw the unaltered Probe V on my monitor screen and gasped “what the hell is that?” Indeed, like my earlier ProbeStangs, this Probe V version might stray a bit further from the aero ideal that hard-core streamliners might want, but as before we need to balance benefits with acceptance of the market. Those damn consumers.

Honestly, I was kind of surprised by the interior of the Probe V since it seemed like a bit of an angular letdown.

The cleanliness and linear form of the dash could be tweaked a bit to create something more usable for our ProbeStang. The very-1985 steering wheel controls will need to be pared down to allow space for the airbag, but the height-adjustable “pod” steering column can be retained with a central graphic tachometer and digital speedometer and gauges that move with the adjustable column. The Probe V’s gauges were entirely heads-up projections, but here the HUD is just a supplementary display.

Flanking the center gauge are four secondary displays that are designed to simulate the sport gauge package on a 1965-66 Mustang. The flip-down door in the dash center conceals the car schematic with aero and fault gauges; the back side of the lid contains suspension height, air intake, rear spoiler, and display adjustment controls (the HUD, digital/metric, and such). At night, or whenever you don’t want the distraction of this display, you can simply close the lid. A red light below the release button will illuminate to let you know if there’s a fault indicated on the stowed screen that needs your attention.

Now, if this were a Lancia I’d have gearshifts coming out of the ceiling and foot-operated power windows, but we need to stay pretty basic with the Mustang brand and I don’t mind keeping it uncluttered and businesslike.

The Ford Of The Future That Never Was

Pony cars were never really about the highest top speed, lowest wind noise, or the best gas mileage while top-gear cruising with the engine barely burbling over idle at 70. That doesn’t mean such benefits wouldn’t be welcome in our imagined early nineties Pony car, when gas prices still were a bit high after Desert Storm. As with my earlier attempts, the Probe shape could keep the Mustang state-of-the-art and offer those extra advantages over The General’s offerings.

Lower and even longer than Mustangs that came before, the ProbeStang V would be a worthy flagship for the Blue Oval, still lean and current instead of the equivalent of that uncle doing karaoke singing to Cure songs over in the corner. Not that I know anything about that kind of person.

How A Ford Probe-Based Ford Mustang Would Have Been The Ultimate Fox Body – The Autopian

The High Tech Ford Probe IV Concept Could Have Inspired A Futuristic “Fox” Mustang – The Autopian

Ford Missed Out By Not Offering This ‘Big’ Mustang Alongside The Pinto-Based Model We All Know – The Autopian

There Should Have Been Two Fords With The Mustang Badge In 1974, And Here’s The First One – The Autopian