Taken from SHOForum. Thought this was cool. Thought some might be interested to read on of what might have been. Interesting comment at the end that id the GN34 got the green light it might have spelled trouble for Ford since the sports car market declined. Also helps to see into why Ford does things we deem as dumb. Yes, we'd like to see them build this and that but they just don't make big $.
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"I'm a bit of a SHO buff since I've been involved in the engine since the conception of putting Yamaha heads on the 3.0L Vulcan V-6 first came up. The engine eventually became a new engine that only shared the belhousing pattern and Bore centers of the Ford engine. Everything else was new. Ford had a commitment to Yamaha to buy a certain number of engines per year. I think it was 5,000 but I can't remember. They wound up with them stacking up at the Free Trade warehouse in Altlanta. While they were waiting for a FWD automatic to be developed that could handle the engine, they needed another vehicle that could take the growing engine surplus off their hands. ( it apperars Ford wanted the SHO to have an optional auto from day one but had to settle on the 5 speed only until later in production)
The problem was the bean counters had deleted one of the motor mount bosses since they figured it would only be a FWD engine. That cost saving cost them plenty in the long run as it virtually eliminated the possibility of it being used north/south RWD.
Here's one I did back in the late eighties as an engineering exercise/feasability study.
Changing a SHO East/West engine to North/South was very challenging but I figured it out.
It had a T5 5 speed and an 8.8 rear axle. Too bad it never made it into production, the truck was pretty cool and sounded great. The stainless headers, freeflow exhaust (Mustang muffler) and custom CAI we built boosted the HP to an estimated 260.
We took it to Autorama and won the manufacturer award. I had my Yamaha YSR-50 in the back reminiscent of the old Yamahauler show truck. Nobody at Ford had heard of that!
They also didn't know that GM was building the Syclone which this could have competed with. Nobody at Ford beleived me about the "Syclone", because when they searched there competitive information database, they spelled it like the Ford model (Cyclone)!
I wanted to turbo charge the SHO Ranger or at least continue to develop it but Ford took it and I never saw it again.
This is from an article in Sport-truck magazine Sept 1989. They got a lot of facts wrong, and no mention of me or Roush but that's typical of projects for OEM's and car magazines.
Before that, around 1985-86, we were working on the top secret mid engine GN-34 sports car project that was slated to get the SHO engine. That obviously never made it into production, either.
There was a SHO Windstar (built at another company) and at least 2 SHO wagons built by Ford. (I've seen them all)..."
I asked what he thought on his take of this version from another source about the GN-34....
Two mid-engined prototypes you saw at Roush are two survivors from ourGN34 program, which was going to be Ford's answer to the Corvette. Those two examples don't just have a few Pantera parts on them - they are actually Pantera bodies that were grafted onto fabricated chassis.
Take a close look at the doors, roof, and windshield. I saw them take a brand new 1985 gray market Pantera GT5, chop it completely up, and use the body as a basis for a workhorse (I'm not sure if one of the vehicles in the museum is what's left of the '85 as there were more than two built). Later, the person who did the body work on my car sold them several older Pantera bodies, including a '71, for them to use, instead of throwing away 85% of a brand new car. I think I'm the one that put them in touch with this person, saved Ford a lot of money, and never even got a "thank-you".
I think I still have two brown armrests from the '85 they chopped up. Most of the GN34s were powered by a Yamaha designed SHO V6 engine with a ZF 5 speed (integral bellhousing, perhaps from the BMW M-1?). There were 3.0, 3.2, 3.4, and I think 3.6 liter versions as the car kept getting heavier. This was the late 80s so some people wanted to make a luxo-cruiser as the Vette was becoming, while the die-hard
enthusiasts wanted pure performance with no frills at all. Chissaun (sp?) in France was going to build the production bodies. There were also Ford EXPs used as earlier prototypes - some were 4 wheel drive with a center diff and everything! I remember they had IMSA style fender flares, and you could see the engine through the EXP's bubble hatch glass. (They were just mules)
I've heard rumors that one 4wd EXP version survived but I've never seen it. There was also a show car, called the Miah, done by Ital design, that was purchased, and was also considered for the GN34. The Miah was like a Lotus Europa, only way sexier, and was featured on the cover of a hard-bound book on one-off show cars. I saw this car too get taken apart and it was also sadly scrapped. Just a few weeks ago I was talking to someone at our Arizona Proving grounds who had done all of the wiring on the Miah. The reason the GN34 was cancelled wasn't that it was overly ambitious â?? it came down that there was only enough development money at that time for one of two programs - either the GN34, or a "four-door Bronco" as it was called. As much as I like performance cars, our company would probably be out of business right now if we had chosen to continue with the GN34 instead of a "four-door Bronco". As you know, demand for sports cars in the early 90s plummeted, while demand for "four door Broncos" sky-rocketed. Our "four door Bronco" was introduced as the Explorer."
I asked if he could get more pics on the SHO Taurus, Pauls response...
I'll try to scan it in Adobe acrobat. I have pictures of the build up and Autorama. I still have a spare custom SHO Ranger decal. That take on the GN-34 is essentially correct though obviously second hand. I was right there during the GN-34 program and yes, we cut up scrap Pantera's and EXP's to make the mules. Those EXP's were really cool. They didn't have any real SHO engines because they didn't exist except on dyno cells. We took 3.0 Vulcans and twin turbocharged them to duplicate the output.
The transmission was a transaxle and the whole set-up could be seen under the hatch. Surprisingly the EXP's got more attention when we drove them on the street ("Is that the new Fiero?") than the Pantera's.
We built them in Roush Building 3 on Market Street and did testing down in Palm Beach at Moroso.
.....some of the cars may still exist.
We did other crazy prototypes, like the twin turbo 25th anniversary Mustang.
The intake manifold looked like a fighter jet with swept back wings because Jack wanted it like that. There was no way to neatly package an idle speed control solenoid with twin throttle bodies. I came up with the idea to remote mount it in the inner fender. Everybody said it wouldn't work but it did. Anyway the car had 650hp but the Ford lawyers nixed the idea...even when the boost was dialed back to 450. Now that kind of power is deemed ok for production thanks to Viper and Z06 showing they didn't get sued by everybody that bought one.
I did get a nice thank-you note for my work on that.
Ahh, the memories."
GN34 Concept
