Why is a Ford Tempo on BangShift? It’s not a former drag car, or an old Pro Street build. It’s not one of our cheap-car race car ideas, and it certainly isn’t a Rough Start find. Even I’m not daft enough to recommend that here. No, this is one of those rarely discussed engineering ideas that boldly went nowhere. It was tried out, tested, and promptly canned when production feasibility proved to be absolutely and utterly non-existant. What you are looking at is one of the T-Drive mules.
T-Drive worked like this: the engine system would be transversely mounted, with the transmission mounted in the center of the engine instead of the end of the engine. The cylinder bores would be compact, the engine displacements fairly small and dual-overhead cam designs, and whether it was a four, six or eight-cylinder design, any new future tech that came down the pike could and would be adapted quickly because the overall engine design would be the same…just account for cylinder amount and move forward.
The idea of an eight-cylinder Tempo is intriguing enough, but looking at the T-Drive mule, we see problems. Look at the brake reservoirs hanging off of the strut brace! We wonder how the weight balance of the car was affected, and just how entertaining this freak would have been to drive. According to DrivingEnthusiast.net, this would have been a 4.0L inline-eight engine, which we suspect was pushing a power figure that was probably trying to aim at Mustang territory (215-225 horsepower.)
For every idea that becomes a production car, there are several that just don’t make it. What’s your take on the T-Drive system?
Loved the T-Drive. I can remember when Ford “was” going to build this.
I remember a Popular Science article where Ford showed off a pair of RWD T-drive cars called a Contour and a Mystique – they had zero relationship to the production cars with those names, with both using straight-8 power and the Mystique being a minivan. It’s an interesting what-if. I had no idea they’d planned FWD variants of the T-drive.
Amusingly, a Google search for “Ford T Drive” turns up a lot of how-to articles on driving Model T’s.
Considering there was an AWD Tempo this might have been RWD!
WERID AND WILD!!!! I like it
When did Rube Goldberg work as an engineer at FORD??
Two different inline eights can be seen on your page today. Impressive!
Keep up the good work! (I mean it, this is not sarcasm)
this may answer the v-12 powered front drive style [i assumed] Lincoln continental ditched in a salvage yard just north of naples florida. this white continental had v-12 emblem on the trunk as i came up from behind. the required probe under the hood showed off the twin cam 4.6 style engine with 4 more cylinders sittin cross wise just like the v-8 powered cars did. got pictures just got to find them. ford used alligator alley as one of their test and abuse roads. that would explain the abandoned Lincoln in the naples area yard.