Possible 94 SVT Thunderbird found.....

Micahdogg said:
FWIW....Keith, you seemed to hint that Alex's car was not a real SVT thunderbird. IF this is the one that I saw in carlisle a few years back, I remember it perfectly. Yes, it was an older style MN12 (old interior) with mocked up body to look like the 94+ SVT teaser photo's that we've seen.

And while I agree that it may have been pieced together and not something that rolled out of Ford (aka...definitely not a real example of what the SVT Bird would have been)....I was totally floored at some of the engine pieces. I have never seen those castings under his hood and it looks like he seriously had some very real prototype motor parts going on under there.

If you know more....jump in, but I've never seen the supercharger combo, inlet casting, etc... that he had on any other vehicle. Maybe he got some real motor parts and built the car for em?

And Birdman...take it to the TBU. I'm sure those punks would better appreciate your banter.

Micah
Micah,
I know Alex's very well....considering the guy lives near me and I have talked to him numerous times before anybody saw the car at Carisle. It is a 91 T-bird with SVT protype engine, SVT protype wheels, now SVT protype interior and guages. He also has paper that he can make it as has a SVT type car...the people that have svt vehicles know what paper I am talking about.

Alex has never claimed it to be a SVT vehicle, but has fun fooling people.

Alex like to come to Carisle and stick his car with ours.....he says "well it is supercharged" :D
Later
Ken
 
OMG you people are bitch *** whiners :rolleyes: shoulda coulda mighta gonna, the real question here is, is she hot and have a hOOmungus rack :cool: , if not she can keep her posermobile :)
 
AsScLoWn said:
OMG you people are bitch *** whiners :rolleyes: shoulda coulda mighta gonna, the real question here is, is she hot and have a hOOmungus rack :cool: , if not she can keep her posermobile :)
LOL i wasnt gonna say anything but when i first saw her i thought it was a guy and ive talk to other people and they thought the same thing
 
Ehh...if this is the car and "person" we talked with Brad, I..have doubts about the validity of it but... Honestly, I remember him/her better than the...uhh..car. I guess I was a bit..distracted by the person and forgot the details of the car. I didn't even remember the car's color.

For those of you confused by my post, well, I'm being cryptic because things such as this are better left to PMs.

I won't forget meeting the person that's for sure.
 
Finally kicked the Scanner into gear.

The scans aren't as clear as the photo's in the book. Maybe someone with Photoshop can clean them up a bit.

The text on the preceding page is as follows;

" SVT Vehicles That Never Were

One thing that keeps car lovers awake at night is contemplating what vehicles their favorite manufacturers are considering for production. For SVT lovers, there have been a host of prototypes and concept cars that saw the light of day, but never made it to production. Some appear breifly and disappear. Over the years others have taken on a life of their own. Among the SVT products that made it to the concept stage and were considered for production were a 5-liter Ranger (later supercharged), an Expedition with a supercharged 5.4-liter Lightning engine (known internally as the "Thunder"), and a Thunderbird, which had a supercharged 4.6-liter 4-valve engine.

You can read more about the Cobra powered Ranger and the Thunder Expedition in chapter six, but the Thunderbird bears mentioning here because it was one of those strange birds whose legend grows with time. The last iteration of the SVT Thunderbird was seen in the mid-1990s, and it had '95 Cobra R-style wheels and an Eaton supercharged 4.6-liter 4-valve engine. Thunderbird fanatics have gone as far as building their own copies of this car using engines from other vehicles (the 4-valve 4.6 was never offered in the MN12 Thunderbird) and aftermarket supercharger kits.

Bill Lane, a powertrain Systems engineering supervisor for SVT, still has a huge place in his heart for the 5.0 Ranger. Lane began his career at Ford in 1963, which means he was around for virtually the entire first muscle car era. He worked on many of Fords premeir performance cars of the era, including the 428 Cobra Jet. During Lane's first year with SVT in 1996, he and some calibration specialists were in Arizona doing last minute tweaks to the Ranger's computer. Late one night, one of the 5-speed 5.0 Rangers was stopped at a traffic light when a '67 Chevy El Camino SS pulled up along side. According to Lane, the Ranger smoked the big block Chevy Muscle truck. The driver of the El Camino was quite suprised and more than a little embarrassed.

Other models that earned a spot in the SVT Graveyard (marked by a tombstone on the back of Coletti's door) were an SHO-powered Taurus wagon, a 3.0-liter Contour, and a turbocharged Escort ZX-2."

http://members.tccoa.com/andysc/SVTbirdengine.jpg

http://members.tccoa.com/andysc/SVTbirdstreet.jpg

I am not sure, but from the background it looks as though these pictures might have been taken at one of the Woodward Dream Cruise events.
 
Andy 94SC said:
Don,
For my part I'm sorry. It just gets under my skin when someone who does not undertand tries to tell me how the business I am in does and does not work. Especially when they are rude and disrespectful about it. I think this is an important thread, we should get to the bottom of whether this is or is not some special edition. I wonder if this might have been one of those NASCAR edition Thunderbirds? Those might have gotten labeled differently than regular production...

One thing to keep in mind is there seems to be a seperation between SVE and SVT. SVT is the marketing branch. I just read something interesting on the Lightning board about that regarding the Gen 1 Lightnings. Gen1 Lightnings - Non SVT

Also as soon as I can get my scanner to work I will scan in the pictures of the roots blown SVE Thunderbird from my SVT book. Those pics are a lot clearer than those above, you can see a lot more engine detail.

Now heres the first thing that comes to my head. I have a 98 nascar edition f150. Someone mentioned that they canned the tbird for 98 to make more truck motors. Ford decided to produce the nascar pickup f150 instead of the nascar edition tbird, thats too bad. My truck has some appearance goodies and suspension goodies from roush.

Now about the pics of the svt thunderbird in the last post, I have never seen those before. Its very interesting to look at the car, it appears to be a 96-97 car, but has 94-95 headlights on it. The special bumper is very different, it looks exactly like the 94 supercoupe foglights, and the air dam opening is unique.

I would love to actually see this car in person to see what the interior changes were that JerryW was talking about, the revised cup holders, etc.

Also the wheels on it are not the same wheels as the ones that FRPP sells.

Question for the guys who have the real svt thunderbird wheels with the casting marks on them-- where did you get these wheels? I noticed that the center cap is different from the frpp wheels also, they put stupid cobra caps on the thunderbird wheels.

Final comment, ford has been fooling around with eaton supercharged 4.6L v8's and the first vehicle they put it in is the stupid mustang, go figure.

Great thread though.
 
JustinH said:
Also the wheels on it are not the same wheels as the ones that FRPP sells.

Question for the guys who have the real svt thunderbird wheels with the casting marks on them-- where did you get these wheels? I noticed that the center cap is different from the frpp wheels also, they put stupid cobra caps on the thunderbird wheels.

I actually bought my set from a member on this site who was local to me. He bought the set from a Mustang parts shop that is local to us. The owner of the shop purchased the set from a Detroit recycling place in Detroit MI. That's how he came across them.

As mentioned, the SVT Thunderbird wheels are copies of the 95 Cobra R wheels and accept the Cobra R wheel caps, although, they are only 7" wide and not 9" wide.
 
JustinH said:
I would love to actually see this car in person to see what the interior changes were that JerryW was talking about, the revised cup holders, etc.

justin,

the interior that jerry was talking about was in the 98 proto cars, not the 'svt' car.
 
So if anyone saw that link of Andy's to the Lightning debate....they claim that the 93 Gen 1 lightning was made by Ford Truck Division and not SVT. SVT had no affiliation with the 93 truck, but then in 94 SVT ONLY added their name to the sales brochures. Then in 1995 SVT added their name to the brochures and their badges to the truck.

My questions....did SVT ever have anything to do with the production of the 1st gen lightning (assembly, R&D, testing, etc....) It sounds like their only involvement was in marketing...and limited at that (tossing their name around). Someone else said that all 1st gen lightnings had "SVT" certificates....but if SVT had absolutely nothing at all to do with the 1993 version then why did they even get to produce certificates for them.

Seems very weird that Ford took this approach. I'm assuming SVT actually did more than stamp their name on stuff for the other SVT vehicles.

Micah
 
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Nettlesd said:
I actually bought my set from a member on this site who was local to me. He bought the set from a Mustang parts shop that is local to us. The owner of the shop purchased the set from a Detroit recycling place in Detroit MI. That's how he came across them.

As mentioned, the SVT Thunderbird wheels are copies of the 95 Cobra R wheels and accept the Cobra R wheel caps, although, they are only 7" wide and not 9" wide.
Duane,
Don't forget they are magnesum(sp?) and not aluminum.

later
Ken
 
Micah,
The answer probably lies in the difference between SVE and SVT. They are not entirely interchangeable. Generally SVE designs and engineers a vehicle that is sold as an SVT. However there are some SVE vehicles that do not make it to be SVTs, like the T-bird we are discussing, or like the GT that was designed with the SVE team but is not marketed exactly as an SVT vehicle.

Conversely it also seems like a possibility that other vehicles come own the product pipeline without SVE involvement by it makes marketing sense to brand them as SVT's. As seems to be the case with the '93 Lightning.

SVE = engineering, SVT = marketing.
 
Thanks for the clarification...now I'm back on the fast track.

So for my other question....I was tearing into a boat motor and found a chunk of lawn inside. Weird.

Micah
 
don't forget that in '93 the marketing division was SVO, and even the '93 cobras didn't have any badges besides a cheap looking emblem on the back and those famous snakes on the sides and engine. just my $.02
 
Micahdogg said:
So for my other question....I was tearing into a boat motor and found a chunk of lawn inside. Weird.

Micah

I think you were told about taking skiers through the yard already. :eek: You shouldn't be surprised to find half the yard in your boat motor. :D
 
Micahdogg said:
Thanks for the clarification...now I'm back on the fast track.

So for my other question....I was tearing into a boat motor and found a chunk of lawn inside. Weird.

Micah


Weird. You're not a friend of Scott Long's mom by any chance, are you?
 
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