jab

The vehicle in question is purported to be the prototype/concept platform for the Ford F-150 Lightning Series Pickup

This project resulted from that famous meeting in November 1991, at which a group of Ford execs (who also happened to be hard-core enthusiasts) gathered to toss around ideas about producing exclusive high-performance Ford vehicles in limited quantities. From that initial meeting, Ford's Special Vehicle Team emerged as a driving force in the performance realm, introducing its first two products in 1992 as 1993 vehicles: the SVT Mustang Cobra and F-150 Lightning.

This particular truck, was hand built by Boyd Coddington under a direct contract awarded by Ford sometime in late 1991 or early 1992. This is the one with the 460 bored out to 600cid that cranks about 700 HP out through the Art Carr C6 tranny. It's the original show vehicle that the production Lightning was developed from and it's still in the original condition with less than 150 miles on it. We have been told that this vehicle was honored with “Truck of the Year” for 1993 by HOT TRUCKS MAGAZINE and appeared on the cover in October of that year. Petersen Publishing used to own Hot Truck Magazine, but they sold it and the new owners have also not been of any help.

The vehicle was apparently purchased from Boyd/Ford by Petersen Publishing, perhaps with the intent of transferring it to the Petersen Automotive Museum at some future time. Apparently that never occurred and the truck was eventually sold by Petersen Publishing to an individual in the San Diego area, who intended to use the truck as a daily or at least weekend driver.

At the time of this sale, the truck was nowhere near “California Road Ready” and instantly became a “project” for the new owner. Among other things he discovered that Boyd & the crew didn’t do much in the area of thermal studies and didn’t expect it to be idling for any significant length of time. Lots of idle time resulted in the engine heat bubbling the fancy show grade purple paint on the hood. By the time he got the whole body re-primed, this second owner realized the magnitude of the “make it road ready” project and lost interest in completing it. My son-in-law wound up in possession after this San Diego owner traded the truck away for some outstanding debts.

Unfortunately, my son-in-law doesn’t have deep enough pockets to apply the kind of paint job this truck deserves, so his contribution has been more in the way of getting a few mechanical issues resolved. The truck body is presently in the same state as when he took possession – ie it is primed and ready for a show class paint job. If we can gather some definitive documentation about it, we’ll then put it up for sale so someone with deeper pockets can restore it to it's former glory.

As the third owner of this bit of Ford History, the California “Pink Slip” (ie TITLE) we received with the truck still bore the signature of an officer of Petersen Publishing, since this prototype was never made “California Road Ready” by the San Diego owner and therefore he wasn’t ever able to complete the transfer of ownership from Petersen Publishing. My son-in-law was finally able to get the title transferred to his name by paying a bunch of back fees and setting the registration class to “Non-Planned Operation” which means it is not legal to run on the street.

In attempting to gather information on the truck, we paid Boyd’s a visit and although the staff all remembered this truck VERY WELL, they purged a bunch of their "older" files when they moved to the new La Habra Facility. Since the death of Boyd recently, there’s no hope of getting any documentation out of them.

According to one site, the introduction was covered in over 150 publications at the time, but it appears most online archives or “back issues departments” don’t go back that far. SO out only hope is to find an enthusiast who might have one or more of these back issues in their collection.

This vehicle is a significant part of Ford's SVT history and deserves to be “out there” in the public forum at shows and meetings, not gathering dust in my son-in-law's garage.

We would appreciate any information about the appearance of this platform in ANY publication in the 1992 – 1993 time frame and are willing to pay any reasonable finder’s and purchase fees to get information establishing the authenticity of this truck.

Some Pix of the truck in its present state follow and higher resolution verisons are avilable for anyone interested.

lightning_2000

RED93#3324

The same thoughts I had....

I'm not sure what to say........700 hp would be nice....I guess that's all I have to say

Chuck

__________________
Red '93 Lightning #3324
R.I.P. @ 201,000 miles (2-25-07)
Best Time: 13.94 @ 99.25
New 357ci...It's alive!

Patrick

Man, wouldn't this be something the Ford Museum or SVT would want? Might try contacting them for some "guidance" on what you might have here.

Got to be a lot of things to worry about otherwise. Good luck

__________________
Best of both worlds! Mostly stock D/D's
03 & (94 sold)
4#, DMP Air Kit, DMP Dynotune, xcal 3, SCT BA2600, NKG TR6s, DMP Valve body, DSL, 389/498,

Zak Attack

That is the ugliest body I have ever seen.

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Sportruk

OMG, it's still alive. That is the truck that inspired me to build mine. I bought my '88 in July of 1991 with the intention of building a street truck. In September or October of 1991, the November '91 edition of Sport Truck Magazine was on the book shelves. As soon as I seen that truck on the front cover, I knew what I wanted to build.
I see by your pics, they changed the headlights. They were originally from a European Ford Merkur without the corner lights.
I have the rest of the pics from the magazine around here somewhere that I can scan and e-mail if you wish.



This is mine.

jonwoos

Shawn your truck is beautiful!!! The other one is NOT, but it was good inspiration for you though.

RhinoRacing

Hey Shawn I bet you could buy it

Sportruk

Ahh, no. If there is ever another 90's Ford in my driveway, it would be a Gen1.

Thanks guys. I took the best ideas from Boyds truck. The 3" choptop with laidback windsheild, the body line on the front fender and the stretched cab idea. I concidered the Lincoln front clip and 460, but this was my first custom and didn't want to get to much into the frame and suspension.
I would have liked to do something similar on the rear, but I had to draw the line somewhere and get the truck on the road. It took 4 years as it was.

As for the idea that this truck was the inspiration for the Lightning, I don't know. Ford had done a couple other concepts that would be more inline with the thoughts of the Lightning. The Street was a 460 choptop and the 1990 XFT with a 460 that was more inline with the 454SS concept of big engine, basic truck.
Regardless, the Boyds truck was a real shock to the street truck scene with so many cookiecutter Chebys out there and so few custom Fords.

SuperSnake

Sporttruck I have to say I like what you have done to your truck I have seen pictures of it on a couple of sites.

lightning_2000

post up more pix of the mag. i wanna see

Vern

700 hp and an 85 mph speedo??? That's weird!

As I recall, there was a Ford engineer (Gary Siegel?) that was on the original Ford Sport Truck Team that developed the Lightning used to be on this board. He owned a 95 Lightning. He said that they seriously considered a big block, but they wanted a more all-around performance truck and thought that they could get the power they needed from the 351. He was also very adamant that SVT had absolutely nothing to do with the original 93 Lightning. After it was developed, SVT had Ford transfer it to the SVT group as a companion to their new 93 SVT Cobra.

FMOS Racing

Interesting piece of work, but not remotely associated with the Lightning in any form or fashion, I'm afraid.

jab

Guys, THX for al lthe comments, we are really trying to get the lineage of this vehicle sorted out so when we go t osel it, we're not mis-representing anything. I've price dyno runs at the local shops and we'll be posting the reports as soon as we get the runs performed.

SPORTRUK, We would be happy to pay for your time and effort regarding getting a copy of the article, borrowing or buying the mag from you. PLZ reply w/details via PM.

THX again guys, plz keep the info coming.

jabgen1

THIS is the truck I thought the lightning grew from??!? I remember this truck and the mag-article, dont recall ever seeing that other (purple) one.