I thought that some of you would like to know what kind of cars we get
passing through Ford's Design Center for evaluation and development.
Some 2 years ago, we had Michael Andretti's Indy Car here for 1 1/2 weeks
scanning it for input into CAD. Earlier this year, we had Rusty
Wallace's NASCAR "Midnight" for the same reason. We have had a couple of
A***a NSX pass through. I had the opportunity to climb over a Viper as well.
We see almost every car available in North America, and many that are not.
Ford, as well as GM and Chrysler, buys or leases cars to evaluate, and then
destroys them or returns them to the dealers. Foreign cars that are not
built to U.S. specs, are either exported or destroyed. Some of the destroyed
cars are torn down for evaluation and comparison to our own cars.
Now for some LBC content:
Earlier this year, we had the Aston-Martin Vignale sedan around for
evaluation, and for the better part of a year, we had the Jaguar XK-13
sitting in storage. But yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit in a
Jaguar XJ-220, one of the Fast Masters cars.
For anyone interested, the XJ-220 has very wide sills, and is hard to
climb into and out of. The seats had plenty of travel, I was able to
stretch out my legs, but this car has Recaro's and they sit very high.
For this reason. I couldn't sit comfortably. The roof is a glass panel,
but with the high squab, I had to sit with my head tilted over.
The inside rearview mirror is useless, you can see about 6 inches
in height 10 feet behind you. And it is LOUD. <g> This one has straight
pipes, and no radio, not that you could hear it anyway.
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