Ford in the mid-1990s was a strange beast. In Europe, its small and medium sized cars were doing well in the automotive war for Europa. The Focus and Mondeo were brilliant to drive, good value for money and good looking. But back in America – on the home front – things were different.
In the fifty states, Ford was still dogged by the negative image it had in the eighties, where such things such as the Ford Mustang King Cobra existed and where the prevailing comment anyone could make about their utility vehicles was that Ford actually stood for: Found Off Road, Deserted.
So during the 1990s, Ford – swollen by its recently put-together Premier Automobile Group – embarked on a mission to create some radical image-salvaging concept cars.
One such concept car was the Ford Indigo.
Built in coloration with Reynard Motorsport, who ran Ford’s IndyCar effort, the Indigo should have been a spectacular success. Some areas of the car’s mechanical specifications still hold up today. The Indigo was to have a carbon fibre tub on to which the suspension – which was nearly an exact replica of the system used on Reynard’s IndyCars – would be directly attached too. The engine was designed to be a load-bearing part of the chassis and the aerodynamics were also incredibly advanced.
This kind of technology these days is worth salivating over, but back in 1996 – this tech was really very innovative.
Ford however is a big OEM, and the Indigo was unable to avoid the hugely depressing and pedantic wasteland of part sharing. As a result, the Indigo was powered by a six-litre V12 that was – hey not bad at all! – created by splicing two Ford Duratec V6s together – ah.
Irreverence aside, this V12 was also the first ‘new’ V12 Aston Martin had designed and used in their cars – an engine that would go on to power many of their cars throughout the 2000s. But back to miserable part sharing, the steering rack – something you’d like to probably think is quite important to be of high quality for such a high performance car – was taken from a Ford Taurus. Joy.
The Indigo back in 1996 was a brave, albeit flawed car. But it was a brilliant concept. It looked unique and was genuinely groundbreaking.
But it was too brave.
The world wasn’t ready for it. As a result, it never made it passed the stage of being a concept car.
The real kicker is that if Ford was to reboot the Indigo and release it in the mould of so many other trackday or track only hypercars, then the Indigo would be an absolute success.
It would probably look like a two-seater BAC Mono on steroids, but at the same time, that stuff is what sells to the ultra-rich these days.
If the Indigo was re-released, and the link to IndyCar was emphasised less, and it was instead marketed as being a unique supercar that offered single seater dynamics and spirit, whilst being road legal, then a real case could be made.
Ironically, Aston Martin which was previously owned by Ford is doing virtually the same thing – a road legal hypercar with single-seater spirit, and that project is becoming one of the most talked about cars in recent years.
A modernised Ford Indigo could embrace modern IndyCar technology and combine it with a race-derived twin turbocharged V6 that made say, an easy 900 bhp, then it could be the American take on the Aston Martin Valkyrie.
Kerbside 