In the spring of 1966, Ford was riding high on its Total Performance campaign. The Mustang was a runaway sales success, the GT40 was taking the fight to Ferrari, and Carroll Shelby was transforming ordinary Fords into serious performance machines. Somewhere between those worlds, Ford began developing another idea: an affordable mid-engine American sports car that could take on the Chevrolet Corvette. The project became known as the Mach 2. Contrary to the nickname often attached to it today, Ford historian Charlie Henry’s research indicates it wasn’t really meant to be a mid-engine Mustang. The target was closer to a homegrown successor to the Shelby Cobra, potentially selling for no more than about $7,500.
The Mustang connection was nevertheless very real. Ford took a 1966 Mustang convertible from the assembly line and sent it to Kar Kraft, the Dearborn-area skunkworks responsible for some of Ford’s wildest racing projects, to investigate whether its structure could be converted to a mid-engine layout. Two much more finished prototypes followed, built around modified 1967 Mustang structures with fiberglass bodies. The red street version stood only about 47 inches tall and weighed roughly 2,650 pounds, with a Ford small-block V8 mounted behind its two seats and power sent through a ZF transaxle. Ford even designed the car around possible SCCA and FIA competition requirements.
Ford Built Three — Then Ordered Them Gone
The finished red Mach 2 was no static auto-show prop. It ran, drove and was handed to automotive journalists for evaluation at Ford facilities. Its body mixed familiar Ford cues with something much more exotic: doors cut into the roof, simulated intakes behind the cabin, a sharply truncated tail and a mid-engine silhouette that would have looked extraordinary beside a 1967 Mustang or Corvette. A second, white example was intended for further racing development. For a brief moment, Ford appeared to be seriously investigating whether the Mach 2 could become a production automobile. It seems Chevrolet was so concerned about the project, they debuted the first mid-engine Corvette concept the next year.
Then the project lost momentum. By late 1967, Ford had moved on to revised Mach 2 concepts, while the original cars were left with Kar Kraft for disposal. The early Mustang-based feasibility car and the white prototype are documented as having been crushed. The red road car, however, was apparently spared, at least temporarily. Ford continued borrowing it for displays and special events, while Kar Kraft reportedly used it for parades and even an engineering exhibition at Purdue University. It also appears in surviving film shot at Kar Kraft in 1969. And then it disappeared.
Is the Last Mach 2 Still Out There?
The red Mach 2 was last definitively accounted for at Kar Kraft around 1969. When the company shut down in November 1970, nobody seems to have documented exactly what became of the car. It may ultimately have been crushed like its siblings, but unlike those cars, researchers have found no paperwork proving its destruction. That missing piece of documentation has kept the story alive for more than half a century.
The rumors are almost too good. One claims the prototype somehow ended up with a foreign manufacturer. Another says a Ford employee rescued its remains from a Detroit-area scrapyard used by automakers to dispose of experimental vehicles. That version ends with the Mach 2 supposedly hidden away in a garage somewhere around Detroit. Ford historians have interviewed former employees and searched surviving company records without finding evidence that proves any of those stories. Researcher Jim Kreuz has suggested the prototype may also have carried an experimental Ford identification number, making it considerably harder to trace than a conventional production car.
As of writing, no authenticated Ford Mach 2 has resurfaced. The safest conclusion is that it was probably destroyed but “probably” is what makes this particular Ford so intriguing. Other prototypes and one of a kind cars once assumed crushed have famously been rediscovered decades later, including experimental Shelby Mustangs. Somewhere between Kar Kraft’s doors closing in 1970 and today, Ford’s red mid-engine Corvette fighter simply dropped out of the historical record. If it escaped the crusher, one of the most fascinating missing Ford prototypes may be left forgotten in somebody’s garage.
