Probe I (Feb, 1980)
Probe I
Ford’s latest idea is Probe Iā a concept car for the late 1980’s. The sleek surface and design cut air drag to 0.25ā lower than any American car on the market. Projected fuel economy: 39 mpg at 55 mph. For long trips there are stereo, TV, and computer games.
Looks like an alien spaceship, just what kind of probe are they talking about anyway?
I don’t know about the States, but here in the UK Ford did market a vaguely similar (only more aggressive-looking) model called the Probe in the nineties. It died like a dog, partly because of that epically woman-unfriendly name.
@Kenneth Wright: The Probe was marketed here as well – though it looked nothing like what was in the picture (nor in other representations of the concept – which dated well back into the 1960s, IIRC). The UK Probe and the US Probe probably looked similar (one of the things featured in the concepts that wasn’t put into production, that I recall, was the rear wheel covers).
That’s a horrorshow auto for getting to some devotchka for some in-out, in-out. Just don’t hit your gulliver on the door frame.
I owned a Probe here in the states. It shared the under carriage of the Mazda 6. Unfortunately, Ford did not execute the body as well as Mazda did. Also, my girlfriend at the time remembers hearing a salesman say that even he would buy the Mazda version! š
Looking at the concept car, just yesterday my mother was talking about “wheel skirts”, those things that half way covered the wheels.
Ahh, the Probe. Car choice of proctologists everywhere.
Was slated to be the replacement for the the Mustang, I am told.
I had a roommate with a first generation Ford Probe. It had motorized pop-up headlights; one perpetually up and one perpetually down, of course. Actually, my uncle had a Pontiac Fiero with the same crappy “feature”.
The ford probe released here in the U.K. was originally going to be called the capri. There was one parked by my house that was badged as a capri and you also say it in the advert when it parked next to a capri and the announcer said something like “old and new” aluding to it being a capri replacement. However when it did finally come out it was the probe, don’t know where the capri badged one came from as it was only around for about a week and we never saw it again.