Here's an equal rival of Corvette is failed to appear on stage

ONE-OFF The following article briefly tells about the rivalry that really happened between the two American automotive giants General Motors and Ford Motor Company through the automotive products produced by both of them.

The Ford Cougar II Concept is built by Ford Motor Company intended to be an equal rival model of the Chevy Corvette. (Picture from: Motorcities.org)

The story begins when GM through its subsdiary marque, Chevrolet launched a design change of the Corvette sports car in the early 1960s, which at that time immediately caught the public's attention because of its good performance. Off course it made Ford top brass felt challenged to create an equal rival.

The Ford Cougar II Concept is featured an aerodynamic coupe styling bodywork, offered a great interior design plus retractable headlights. (Picture from: Motorcities.org)

Then they called the company's engineers for immediately devised a plan. In short, the engineers produced this interesting concept such the Ford Cougar II Concept, which featured an aerodynamic coupe styling bodywork, offered a great interior design plus retractable headlights and was also called one of three-X car concepts, along with the Ford Allegro and Ford Mustang II.

The Ford XP Bordinat Cobra is a concept car creation of Ford Motor Company collaborated with Carroll Shelby back in the 1963. (Picture from: Motorcities.org)

By design this Cougar II Concept is very similar to another concept car called the Bordinat Cobra, associated with Gene Bordinat, Ford's Vice President of Styling then, and the man behind the creation of these two great concept models. Well, the mentioned Cobra Roadster, which is one of the collaboration result cars of Ford Motor Company with Carroll Shelby, turned out to be warmly welcomed when it was introduced to the public, and many consumers really enjoyed the great styling. It's said that Ford never liked the eggshell-thin aluminum body of the Cobra, so it designed a coupe style similar to the Corvette and had one made.

The great looking Ford Cougar II fastback concept design built with a fiberglass body under finishing touches of a candy apple red color. (Picture from: Motorcities.org)

Furthermore, both are also built on a Shelby Cobra legendary chassis, only the Cougar II Concept is powered by a Ford small block 260ci V8 engine. This great looking fastback concept design built with a fiberglass body under finishing touches of a candy apple red color, in which its bodywork was created and built by Ford designers, Ken Spencer and Ray Behmer.

The Ford Cougar II Concept is powered by a Ford small block 260ci V8 engine. (Picture from: Motorcities.org)

While many historians and automotive enthusiasts have argued that the Cougar II Concept looked like a Corvette and deserved to be an equal rival for those Chevy's sports car, on the contrary Ford engineers at the time thought the car would be too expensive to produce. 

So then the blue oval logoed company chose to be more focus on the Mustang project whose its production version is still could be seen until today, and left the Bordinat Cobra and the Cougar II Concept models dusty in the warehouse. Later, both of them were donated to the Detroit Historical Museum. 😢 *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | MOTORCITIES | THEGENTLEMANRACER | HEMMINGS | BURRITODETODO ]

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