Okay, not hovering in any sense ... but its a 1950s car so I decided to just drop it here.
I've always liked the look of the 2-seat Ford Thunderbird but have only just read that its origins lay in a design contest sponsored by Henry Ford II. The contest rules specified a 2-seat sportscar based on a British Ford Anglia chassis and powered by a Phil Weiand-built flathead V8 - with Weiand's own dual-carb intake manifold and finned-aluminum heads.
The winner was the one-off 1953 Ford Vega roadster (aka A1953 Gardner) with an aluminum body over that Anglia chassis. It had classic European-style roadster styling but, by 1953, that was already looking rather dated to American eyes. So Ford ditched the concept and started over again with US Ford running gear and a chassis shortened to the length of a Corvette frame. The result was the 1955 Ford Thunderbird.
The body styling of the '55-'57 Thunderbird was very influential - including for the new UK Ford Consul, Zephyr, and Zephyr Zodiac line up. As a family car, the Zephyr family was taller and chunkier - despite being an early Ford unibody type. For 1958, US Ford also decided to redesign the Thunderbird for that unibody construction. [1] So, my point-of-departure is: What-if, in the Summer of 1958, US Ford ships its obsolete tooling for the first-generation, body-on-frame T-bird by sea to UK Ford's new plant at Halewood (Liverpool)?
The Whiffy Bit
Prior to establishing a modest Thunderbird line at Halewood, UK Ford revises the drivetrain. With no English V8 available - the last flathead having been made in 1951 - the 2,553 cc straight-six from the Zephyr was adopted. This '2.55 L' 6-cylinder engine was fitted with side-draught SU carburettors and individual air filters (to reduce overall engine height enough to fit under the lower T-bird hood). The frame is also modified to accept Zephyr suspension units (albeit with stiffer 'performance' shock absorbers and wider rear tires in an attempt to reduce the Zephyr's tendency to oversteer).
And, thus, the 1959 Ford Zephyr GT was born - a 2-seat touring car with few pretensions towards being a high-performance sportscar. The styling was getting dated for 1959 but that was partially made up for by its posh leather-and-burl-wood interior. Thoughts?
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[1] The lardier 1958 Thunderbird was also redesigned to have a back seat. If, like me, you think that was a mistake ... then you have one more thing that you can blame on poor ol' Bob McNamara.
