- Did you know that Ford almost made
the Mustang front wheel drive?
(car engine roaring) (tires screeching)
From its Mazda roots to the woman who engineered it
with women in mind, this is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on the Ford Probe.
(action music)
And before we begin, I want you to turn the lights down.
I want you to get comfy.
Open a nice bottle of wine or fancy root beer,
if you're under 21.
I know it's nine or 10:00 AM right now
and you're probably on the toilet, but it's cool.
It's summer baby.
Or go ahead and take a nice long look at that cork, right?
You looking? Great!
'Cause now I want you to ask yourself,
is this cork a Mazda?
Chapter one, the Almost Stang.
Believe it or not, Mazda got its start by making corks.
It began as the Toyo Cork Kogyo company in 1920.
They invented their first vehicle,
1931 power tricycles to specifically carry corks.
The Mazda Go auto rickshaw was the first
in what would be a long line of utilitarian vehicles.
And it wasn't until the '60s with the Mazda R60
that they'd get into passenger cars,
even though they were building up a nice reputation
with their rotary engines.
The transition into the automotive world was rough.
And by the end of the decade,
they were looking to sell some stake in the company
to help raise capital.
Enter the Ford motor company.
Around that time,
Ford was looking to take advantage of the Japanese market
and Ford thought Mazda, that sounds good, I'll have that.
Thus began the love story of Mazda and Ford.
In 1971, they started get all real hot and heavy
with the Mazda B series pickup truck
became the Ford courier in North America.
Not long after that Ford was rebadging
Mazda's commercial trucks in Asia.
It was such a successful partnership
that in 1979 Ford bought 25% of Mazda shares.
You see Ford needed access
to some more fuel-efficient vehicles
because they were in the middle of an oil crisis.
Muscle cars were taking a beating.
By the early '80s, even the most speed-obsessed consumers
had decided that the extra power
wasn't worth the cost of filling their tank for,
I don't know, $1 million adjusted for inflation.
I'm not sure if that's actually 100% correct.
I didn't Google it.
The few pony cars that were selling
were oftentimes the low-powered base models
like the base Mustang,
which had a 2.3 liter four cylinder that made 88 horsepower.
That's not a lot.
That's like air cold beetle territory.
Front engine, rear wheel drive
was looking more and more like a thing of the past.
And the future was gonna be more economical platforms
like the K car, Chrysler's cheap, reliable platform
that ended up being the underpinnings
of more than 50, yes, 50 different models, one chassis.
All of this led to Ford having an aha moment.
You know what, I think I'm gonna have an aha moment myself.
♪ Take on me ♪
We can't use that, we're gonna get sued.
So in 1982 Ford designed Toshi Saito
to start reimagining the Mustang as a-
(continuously gags)
As a front wheel drive car.
Code named the SN 16.
And wouldn't you know it,
that same year Mazda debuted their G platform,
the company's first midsize front wheel drive chassis.
(sighs) Coincidence!
It was the base for the Mazda Capella,
the Mazda 626 and Ford Telstar.
Yes, Ford was already badging cars on the G platform.
So it was perfectly logical to take a long hard look
at swapping it for the then struggling Fox Body 'stangs.
But thankfully not everyone inside Ford was behind the idea.
The most vocal critic of the plan was John Coletti.
Now he is the legendary designer behind the SBT team
in the '90s.
He's responsible for pretty much every cool Ford
from the decade.
And he absolutely hated the SN 16.
He tells a story of being on a tour of the design center
with Ford VP, Ken Dabrowski.
They saw the models for the SN 16
and John was like, "What's that?"
And Ken explained all of the cost benefits
that the new model would have for the company.
- [John] That may be a lot of things,
but a Mustang it ain't.
- And his biggest problem with the design was the low cal.
The SN 16 was must sleeker
than the current Fox Body Mustang.
But that low profile meant that there'd be no room for a V8.
Now, when Dabrowski told him there were no plans for a V8,
John said his reaction was
(model crashes to floor) "I'd rather the Mustang name
"die than for it to be put on that."
And I mean, honestly, you know what, he's not wrong.
I'd love to know what he thinks of the Mach-E.
Anyway, John kicked his complaints up the chain of command,
and internally there came to be some apprehension
about the dramatic change to the Mustang.
I mean the Fox Body years had been good for the Mustang,
pairing the legendary five liter V8
with the four barrel carb, it up the power to 175 horsepower
right around the time that consumers were once again
developing a taste-ment for displacement.
They were sick for the quick.
They had a desire for the fire on the tires.
(tires screeching)
And then there was the 1987 AutoWeek cover story,
where writer Chris Sawyer revealed leaked details
of the SN 16 and the Mustang community
lost their freaking minds.
Front wheel drive, what?
No, V8.
Double what?
Are you frigging kidding me, Ford?
We're gonna come there to Dearborn and kick you in the nuts.
One fan wrote in a letter to AutoWeek and said,
"Tell Dearborn I canceled my Mustang GT
"and ordered an IROC-Z."
Ford guys where the K-pop stands of the '80s.
They called it the Mustang, which is pretty good.
I think it's pretty good.
I think the almost stang is better.
Anyway, all of this worked.
The initial plan was to release the SN 16 as the Mustang
and release the Mustang as the Mustang classic.
But someone at Ford was paying attention
to another PR nightmare going on, new Coke,
and decided to just keep the Mustang the Mustang,
and the SN 16, much like my uncle
who lives right outside of area 51,
he was about to get probed.
Chapter two, it's probin' time!
At last, it's time to get probed.
The SN 16 wouldn't be the new Mustang after all,
but Ford had a new problem
'cause Mazda had already started construction
on a facility to produce G platform cars in Michigan.
And part of that construction contract
said that Ford would be ordering a certain number
of those cars.
So the SN 16 had to come out as something.
So product planners got to work on introducing it
as its own sports car model, separate from the Mustang.
They call it the Probe,
which was a name that they borrowed
from a series of concept cars
they made with Ghia in the early 1980s.
And interestingly enough,
the first of those concept cars was the Fox Body.
So that name technically had more in common
with the Mustang than the SN 16.
Nothing is a coincidence, nothing.
The result was Mazda on the inside, Ford on the outside
and pretty cool throughout.
I like 'em.
The base model used Mazda's F2,
a 2.2 liter four cylinder that made 110 horsepower.
There was also a GT model
that was more performance oriented.
(engine roars)
When the probe launched, the GT used the same inline four,
but it added a turbocharger bringing it up
to 145 horsepower.
The whole thing was so rad in a so late '80s way.
Two years after it debuted,
the GT would switch over to using
Ford's naturally-aspirated Vulcan V6.
It was smoother for sure,
but the gripe with the Vulcan was that
you really had to rev it out to get any power.
And even though it made an identical 145 horsepower,
it put out 25 less pound feet of torques.
The base trims did have an automatic option,
but it was really bad as a lot of '80s automatics are,
but the GT came exclusively in a five-speed manual.
This thing was as sleek as a river otter covered in jelly.
Had a long angular front end and a steeply-raked windshield
that made it look wedgie.
Did it have pop-up up and down headlights?
Does this answer your question?
♪ Pop pop pop up and down headlights ♪
♪ Pop-up up and down headlights ♪
The probe was entering a very crowded market.
By the late '80s demand for compact sports cars
was strong like Nolan strong,
particularly for Japanese models,
which the probe essentially was.
Talking about the Honda Prelude, the Mitsubishi Eclipse,
the Nissan 240SX.
Shouts to Nico from Canada.
He wrote us a very nice letter.
Tell your dad I said what's up.
And also the Toyota Celica were all eating up market share
with both car people and normal people alike.
But the Probe held its own.
In 1990, Jeffrey Collier set a track record at Daytona
in a Probe with an average speed of 166.553 miles per hour.
That record still stands as the fastest close course lap
for a non-turbo four cylinder powered car
in the NASCAR dash series.
And sure, that's an awful lot of qualifiers
to count as a record,
but still it's pretty cool nonetheless.
Records are cool.
Chapter three, do re Mimi.
The Probe was a success.
There was a growing segment of buyers
who wanted something sportier than a Taurus,
but weren't after all the muscle car stats of the Mustang.
(playful music)
By the way, at this point,
the Mustang had fully recovered with its brush
with front wheel drive.
And Ford was well underway with designs for the SVT Cobra.
And you know that the Kentucky Cobra is down with that.
(thunder cracks)
Cobras are so cool, they're so big, so vascular.
They got big ol' traps.
Ford went to work on the second generation Probe.
This time they understood what they had
better than when they were dreaming
of a Mustang replacement.
It would still be mostly Mazda under the hood,
but the look would be all Ford.
And to look at that, let's meet Mimi Vandermolen.
Mimi was responsible for the design of the new Probe
because she was the design executive for small cars,
a first for a woman in the car industry.
During World War II, Ford hired women
for their design teams.
The first being Liotta Carol,
an illustrator who was brought on to do drafts.
In the '40s, there were women designing instrument panels,
ornamentation, color, trim, everything.
But in a league of their own style, waste of talent,
they were all replaced by men returning from the war
and Ford wouldn't hire another female designer until 1970
when they brought on Mimi Vandermolen,
when she was asked to work on team Taurus.
The Taurus exterior would be
a radical new direction for Ford
with soft curve that they called
the rounded edge revolution.
With the Taurus, she also revolutionized car interiors
by applying her ergonomic wizardry, tactile controls.
You know, those little bumps on the buttons
that you can feel.
So you don't have to take your eyes off the road.
Mimi thought of that.
She also changed the climate controls
from being push buttons to more intuitive rotary dials
and broke up the center stack
into multiple zones rather than one straight line,
which made the driver reach far away for switches.
Plus she spent two and a half years and 100,000 miles
prototype testing new seats.
All of it added up to a game-changing car
that would make up 25% of Ford North American sales.
After the galactic hit that was the Taurus,
Mimi was promoted to the executive level
and the first car to come up for a refresh under her tenure
was the Probe.
Now with this car, she had a mission.
To design with female drivers in mind,
and she was completely transparent about what she was up to.
She said, "If I can solve all the problems
"inherent to operating a vehicle for a woman,
"it'll be that much easier for a man to use."
She lowered the front end to improve visibility
for smaller drivers.
She made the trunk door more lightweight.
The moon roof slid out to protect big '90s hair.
She did away with seat buttons that would rip pantyhose.
The pedals were less bulky
to make it easier to drive in heels.
For the knobs and door handles,
she made her male designers wear fake nails
to understand the ease of operation.
And wouldn't you know, this generation of Probes
would increase market share right out the gate.
Gac, you know what?
It's almost like Mimi knew
that if they made a car more people would enjoy driving,
then more people would buy it.
For this generation there were again
two drive trains available.
The base used the Mazda FS engine,
a two liter inline four that delivered 115 horsepower.
The GT, though, used Mazda's KLDE,
a 2.5 liter V6 that made 165 horsepower,
which combined with a 2,900 pound curb weight
gave the GT a zero to 60 time of 7.1 seconds,
which is fast for back then.
(engine roars) (tires screech)
The second gen started out with strong sales
and over the course of its run
would see a few special appearance packages.
The all around sickest of which was
the 1994 Pro Wild Orchid.
But by the mid '90s, sales has started to slow.
Now this was the time of anti-gas crisis.
Cheap fuel prices meant a huge uptick in cars
like Ford's own super popular Explorer.
By 1996 work was starting on a third generation Probe,
but in a cruel twist of fate,
the car that was originally designed to be the new Mustang
ended up having its own design crypt.
What was to be the gen three Probe
ended up being re-imagined as a new sportier Cougar,
in an effort to attract younger people to Mercury.
The last Probe came out in 1997,
putting an end to one of the most unlikely cars
in Ford history.
What began as Mustang owners' worst nightmare
ended up being a success story
of collaboration between American and Japanese automakers,
and lives in our hearts as one of the coolest
American-ish compact sports cars of the '90s.
Thank you guys for watching this video.
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If you want to watch my video on that, check this out,
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