Steve shows us the P229 project, a potential RS Coupe from 1983.

This month, Steve unearths a futuristiclooking coupe project; the P229

There are many cars in Secret Fords that make your head spin. Some are stunningly beautiful; others are shockingly weird. And then there’s this one, that’s extraordinarily futuristic. Project P229 was designed way back in 1983, when Ford was looking at ways to cooperate with Mazda in the mid-’80s and realised the upcoming 323 might be a perfect base for a small coupe to ultimately replace the Capri. An internal competition was held and a young designer, Pinky Lai created something so fresh that design boss Patrick le Quément remembers it as: “It felt like one of those ’50s or ’60s ‘flying cars’ you’d see in magazines. I really liked it; it was one of those vehicles that just had something about it.”

Hong Kong-born British designer Lai was assigned to work in a team led by Thomas Plath and Ian Callum – later the head of Aston and then Jaguar design. Lai went on to head up exterior design at Porsche after designing the E36 BMW. It was an extraordinary assembly of talent under Plath – the designer that had created the XR4i and RS1700T.

The three decamped to Hiroshima to work at Mazda to create a second version that was 90 per cent production feasible. Dressed out in RS wheels and badges, it looked dramatic – an RS Coupe! But the feasibility model didn’t look as fluid as Lai’s original concept – inevitably the production engineers forced the designers to dial back wilder ideas like an illuminated back number plate. The result was still striking, fresh and something that seemed like it had arrived from the future, but it wasn’t to be. Times were tough in late-’83 and the European coupe market was far smaller than the American one – so Ford decided make the LHD-only ’88 Probe jointly with Mazda. The smaller car deserved a better fate than to feature, decades later, on a book’s cover.

There are no surviving front-end photos of the P229 concept car, so Steve had an illustrator recreate it from original drawings and the designers’ memories

This shot shows the novel rear wings that incorporated the rear spoiler. The flush lights and numberplate at the rear – with a neat lower vent under the rear bumper gave it an extraordinarily style – like a miniature fighter jet