AC - Ghia
GB - Italy
A BEAUTIFUL £150,000 ITALIAN exotic car prototype stands at the centre of a controversy that is smouldering inside Ford this summer. The car is the AC Ghia, built by the Ford owned Torinese design house Gnia for the Geneva Show earlier this year, using the mechanicals of Britain's AC 3000ME.
Now, and over the next few weeks, the best brains at ford are supposed to be deciding the future of the car which, on the face of it, offers Ford their best chance of entering the sports car market for many years. The car is arrestingly beautiful- that was confimed by the crowds at Geneva - yet the body has been designed for simplicity of construction that would allow it to be made in small or very large volume - in Britain, Italy or even Detroit.
Supposedly, all is prepared for the evaluation. The car has been to AC at Thames Ditton where they understand its mechanicals.It is in Britain at a time when Ford of Dearborn's supremo, Phillip Caldwell, is passing through on an inspection tour. And as a background to the decision, information about GM's new sports car, the Pontiac P- car (of identical mechanical layout and similar size to the AC Ghia) grows ever more optimistic and voluminous: In short, the AC Ghia decision is one which should have those wise heads of Ford earning their telephone-number salaries.
But the truth is, the verdict has practically been handed down already - and with minimum of high-priced brain-strain. The car, built by Ghia at the instigation of the Ford of Europe boss a mid car appreciator Bob Lutz (and overseen by competitions and publicity head Karl Ludvigsen) will need a miracle to stay alive. It is likely to be steamrollered by Ford's vast, arch-conservative mass of middle order executives who, at best, seem unaware of Mr Lutz's contention that Ford intend to concentrate on building much more desirable cars, bold of design.
At Geneva in March the AC Ghia created a sensation among engineers, salesmen and most of all amorig potential customers, even though it had to vie for attention with Pininfarina's excellent Quattro-based Quartz. Rumours were rife at the time that the Ford engined coupe would be the new works rally winner, built in the image of the Lancia Straios.
But during the Show nobody would confirm or deny that not Ford's Lutz or Ludvigsen (who were there at the car's conception) not Ghia's Sapino (who designed and built it) and not AC's Hurlock (who merely said he was 'very flattered' to have been chosen to supply the show car's bones).
But in Turin several weeks ago, Filippo Sapino of Ghia made it clear that his design had originally been proposed for rally competition. 'That's why we made it shorter, especially in rear overhang, than the 3000 ME,' he told us. 'It had to compare quite closely in size with a Stratos.'
What the rumour-rnongers of Geneva didn't realise was that by show time, Ford's highest echelon had already decided against the Ghia car for rallys; they felt Ford works cars should have the silhouette of a Ford volume-seller. It is likely that they were assisted in their decision by the appearance of factory Audi Quattros on the rally roads to show that cars of Stratos layout, were no longerstate-of-the-art. In any eveht, it was decided that the new Ford rally machines would be 300bhp four-cylinder cars with Escort profiles; but with their engines mounted north-south driving through a rear mounted gearbox, Porsche 924-style.
Just the same the AC Ghia's rowdy reception at Geneva was not lost on some of Ford's sales people. 'The marketing managers were very positive about the car, says Sapino. 'They all said, it was very nice, and that it would, be a pity to waste it. It was the enthusiasm of these people, some of the best diviners of public opinion in the industry that brought the car to Britain where the wisest heads, it was hoped would then bend to its evaluation the trouble is, the main body of the company are reluctant to take the AC Ghia seriously. 'Mr Lutz commissioned that car but he got no support from anyone else here, says one Ford marketing man, not anxious to be named. 'The fact is, we're not in business to make sports cars, Look what happened with the Pantera - what a disaster that turned out to be for us. That sort of involvement (co-operation with Italians, exotic sports cars) isn't our scene: This company doesn't operate that way -it makes money or at least it usually does.
What you have to understand is that projects like this Ghia are not new. Every time one of them arrives we all say here we go again. True, we haven't "gone again" for along time, Maybe its even time we did. But getting it through a finance committee? Lutz'd have to fight all the way for that one.
In short, Ford's insiders are extremely pragmatic. The company are top-heavy with men who consider that any model not selling 300,000 units a year isn't pulling its weight and who break into cold sweat when volume drops to 250,000. Our marketing man again: 'You're not going to rush into making 30,000 sports cars a year when there are so many other far more important projects in urgent need of cash! Where's the volume - where's the profit? And the business implications are far greater than they seem with a car like the Ghia . . .'
Aggressive opinions like these are not balanced by energetic support for the car, even from those who are its avowed admirers. Bob Lutz himself begins a discussion of the AC Ghia by saying that at present Ford have absolutely no production plans in the US or Europe for this car. But, he goes on, that doesn't mean that cars like it are alien to our
Ghia's Filippo Sapino regrets his elegant production plans even though this is a small section of the market and not very profitable. A car like the AC can have a big influence on complete demand in your range. If we had a car like a mid-engined Ferrari, wearing a genuine Ford badge, made at a rate of 6000 to 7000 units a year, it could do a great deal for our overall image. I'd love to do a car like that.
Filippo Sapino, naturally enough the AC Ghia's greatest enthusiast, is cautious too. 'I'm happy that everyone seems to like the car, but I can't be too optimistic about its future. It makes me very sad that we have produced this car at the wrong time. In other circumstances, I think it would stand a very good chance of reaching production; just now I'm not very sure'. But I am hopeful - I am always hopeful.'
The key problem is that Ford are financially stretched. Their losses in the US have recently reached historic proportions their latest profit in Britain was cut by a third and in Germany they made a loss amounting to an alarming (though temporary, Ford say) £100million. Development funds have become correspondingly scarce.
The situation for Ford 'In the US is especially dire. While Ford of Europe have new cars - and a new image - soon to be hatched, it is no secret that in America the cupboard is rather bare. There has even been talk that the entire design team of Ford in Europe might be transferred to Dearborn to inject life into the place, a dire step if ever there was one. Meanwhile, in the US sports car market, Pontiac's mid-engined P-car is around 18 months from production (and a similar car is promised for Europe), even the oft - derided Chrysler are to release a front-drive coupe called K40 and the nearest thing Ford have to a sports car is the Escort - based EXP, recently released, which has been criticised roundly by US buyers. It's difficult to see how Ford can afford not to have an entry in this market - and the logical entry is a car like the Ghia.
Broadly speaking, three fates are still possible for the AC Ghia:
1 : It may go into low-volume production. If that happened it would probably be made in Italy or Britain where such expertise is greatest. It probably wouldn't be made by AC because they are happy enough producing their one 3000ME a week and, besides, Ford would need to fund the operation without necessarily reaping much credit for it. Low volume production - Filippo Sapino defines it as 1000 to 2000 cars a year - would allow the Ghia coupe to use the specially-built AC gearbox and would make AC's own choice of a glassfibrebody and a monocoque platform', chassis right for the new car, too. But small-scale manufacture would have been more likely if the car had been a Stratos-style homologation special, and now it is not.
2: It might go into high-volume production, selling against Pontiac's P-car. That would require the car to be completely re-engineered, probably for all metal construction (the P-car is to have glassfibre body parts, but that is because GM have accumulated huge knowledge of : plastic body-building from their Corvettes). The Ghia coupe would doubtless ditch the Ford V6 and AC five-speed transmission in favour of a transverse, four cylinder power-pack from a big volume front drive saloon (the Escort is the obvious one). Volume would have to be 100,000 cars a year at least and the end product would be different in almost every detail from the prototype. Just the same the £150,000 it cost to design and build the prototype at Ghia is remarkably little money for a workable and popular, sports car shape. In Detroit, according to Sapino, the car would have cost £300,000. It's unlikely that the Americans could have done the job in the five months it took Ghia - assuming that they could have come up with a shape of equal style and impact at all.
3: The Ghia coupe may die. After all, it would hardly be the first Ghia good idea to head speedily for oblivion. The Turin design house had two other cars at Geneva the three-wheeler Cockpit and the Escort - based Avant Garde - and nobody's talking about a production future for those. Even now, there are rumours that the prototype is up for sale inside Ford, to any department that can find a use for it, for about the price of a well-equipped Capri. The most likely end for the car is a couple of years tour of motor shows - each destination a little less significant than the last.
You need only a minute or two's acquaintance with the AC Ghia to decide that it does not deserve to die - and we had a whole day with it in Turin. The car is strikingly beautiful - sleek, small, low and curvaceous in a way that puts its maximum width and length down near the road, and spells 'ground effect' as clearly as three foot high letters on a hoarding.
The car has a low nose that always rakes forward right to the integrated bumper bar (pvc painted metal on the prototype; impact-absorbing plastic on a production model). The grille is Ford-related 'louvre' affair with turn indicator clusters at its extremities and a pair of square foglights lower down. The retractable headlights don't merely flip up at the touch of a switch, they rotate through 180deg to present a properly faired-in but inevitably bug-eyed aspect. The windscreen, radically raked and sculpted to the lines of the car, fits flush with the body as do the high-waisted side-windows. The two big doors have surrounds that incorporate concealed rain gutters: it is touches like these which I,ead you to believe that the car would perform extremely well in a wind tunnel, though when we drove the car it had yet to visit one.
The rear of the AC Ghia is similarly neat. The body widens slightly at the rear wheels, past a duct which gathers cooling air for the engine bay, then cuts in quickly behind the rear wheels (the tyres are 225/50 VR15 Pirelli P6s on 8.0in rims, front and rear). The AC Ghia is a short car - around 7.0in shorter at 157in than a Triumph TR7. But that still makes it around 6.Oin longer than the Lancia Stratos it originally sought to emulate. There is a neat engine hatch cover ahead of the surprisingly low-lipped boot lid on the rear deck of the car, and the upper surface ends abruptly with a black spoiler. The rear roof, according to current Ferrari and Maserati practice, ends at a near-vertical rear window, but the streamlining of the car is maintained by a pair of 'flying buttresses' enclosing a triangular glass section on either side.
The car is no wider than the stance of its tyres, no higher than your waist, but in prototype form metal body on independently strong metal monocoque chassis - it is very heavy. Filippo Sapino says his car weighs around 2800lb - 350lb more than the plastic bodied AC 3000ME. But in production, using either the body engineering problems are very good indeed.
The Ghia coupe's interior echoes that of an AC - same dash (with its TR7 steering column, instruments and switchgear) same seats and the same width-limiting box sections below the door which contribute to the strength of the chassis. For big-volume construction the intrusion of these would have to be reduced, says
Filippo Sapino, but for smaller build rates they wouldn't matter too much. That, presumably is how AC see it themselves.
In every other respect the car's cockpit is extremely impressive. Entry is easy through big, wide opening doors (leaving aside the problem of the sills). Visibility is positively panoramic. Rear three quarter vision is unusually good; your view of the road ahead is excellent (the nose is so low you can't see it without craning. upward) and manoeuvring to the rear is made easy by the bootlid spoiler, seen so easily from the driving seat.
Ghia spent six weeks after Geneva bringing their car to full road readiness at the suggestion of a Ford high-up. 'We fitted the ashtray this morning,' Sapino told us as we drove away from the Torinese factory. 'I drove the car yesterday and discovered it still didn't have one.'
You can't really envy a man who habitually slices through Torinese traffic in prototypes worth six figures in pounds. We tried it ourselves: the Fiat drivers crowd in on you, admiring the car's lines but seeming to look everywhere but at the road ahead. Filippo says his cars have caused 'inattention' accidents in the past.
For a prototype, the car's road behaviour is all refinement. It rides softly, probably because of the extra weight on those standard springs, but its. quietness is astonishing. Road shocks are absorbed almost with the silence of a limousine. The engine is quite subdued, too just the rasp of the exhaust, quite far away. There's precious little mechanical noise, though Ghia say they haven't altered the level of soundproofing from that of the original 3000ME. There's just a rustle of wind noise between standstill and 80mph, the speed range in which we drove the car. The unusual split side windows can be left open even at 70 to 80 without buffetting or undue noise.
But the cockpit room is the thing. There's lots of knee room, lots of shoulder room, plenty of cabin height even though the car looks so squat from outside. Even the boot is big, for all of the car's abbreviated body length. The ventilation sets standards expected of the best engineered saloons. In short, the AC Ghia design is a picture of functionality and space efficiency.
Even as a prototype (though a less raw prototype than most) the AC Ghia eclipses most mid-engined sports cars for outright beauty and again for sheer functionality - and it beats damn near all of them for its combination of the two qualities. Yet it is likely that the men (who control such a happy design, Ford's faceless men, will continue not to take it seriously.
Yet hope springs eternal. Ford spokesman, John Waddell, speaking again for Bob Lutz just before this article went to press, refused to confirm, when pressed, that the project would be dropped. 'Car makers are like politicians in that they never say "never",' he said, though a cynic might be moved to find more similarities between the two.
If enough people around the world beat on our door and say they have to have one of these cars, obviously we'll have to give serious consideration to building them, But if we did build such a car it wouldn't be that one. The AC Ghia would then become our base for a full-scale design study that would consider all the economic and engineering aspects.
Author: ArchitectPage
