Today I Learned— American vs. Italian Made Coupes

[Alphamacaroon]

Something about the look of the original 6 Coupes has always puzzled me— in some pictures they look really, really, sexy and in other pictures they look, well, not quite as (but still pretty sexy). I can't quite explain the difference, but in the less-sexy pictures they look more "stationwagony"— a higher and more bulbous rear roofline.

I've always chalked it up to different camera angles and lighting, but I finally discovered today that there is indeed a difference in the rooflines of the originals! Sorry if this is common knowledge, but I found it fairly interesting and thought I'd share.

https://www.fordmuscle.com/features/back-to-the-future-peter-brock-revives-the-daytona-coupe/

I've always known that there was one American made Coupe and the rest were made in Italy, but what I didn't know was that the Italians took a little creative license when they built theirs for Shelby. Apparently they didn't have access to the original American car, and all they had to go off of were pictures and simple line drawings. So when in doubt they tended to err on the side of familiarity (or maybe national pride)— the Ferrari GTO.

Now I understand why there is a subtle but distinct difference between the FFR and Superformance body shapes— the FFR Coupe looks like it's based off the (better looking IMHO) Italian built Coupes, while Superformance seems to based on the American built Coupe.

Anyway, like I said this might be fairly common knowledge, but I thought it was enough of an "AHA!" moment for me to share.

[Jim1855]

Peter Brock was involved in the Superformance version of the Coupe.
Jim

[Alphamacaroon]

Peter Brock was involved in the Superformance version of the Coupe.
Jim

Right, which would make sense— I would assume he'd want it as close to his original design as possible. Apparently (at least according to that fordmuscle article) they were not happy with the Italian profile and thought that it slowed the car down.

[GThompson]

The FFR also has a wheelbase 5” longer and the body is scale up so that the proportions all look “right”.

When Bill Hough built the plug and mold for the original FFR body I’m pretty sure he didn’t have access to a real one to take measurements of, he just started with the windshield of a Jaguar XJS Coupe and went from there. Most details look really good, others still have me scratching my head a little but I like. One I like is that the originals have the rear wheel openings flared out and the fronts smooth with no flare while the front on the FFR are flared and the rear are flat. One that is just plain messed up (on my now 13-year-old coupe) is the area just ahead if the rear wheels at the end of the rocker panel, the 2 sides of the car aren’t even CLOSE to matching. The left side looks good, the right side is just not finished, is cut too high, is molded in toward the frame too far, just looks wrong. I haven’t looked at a Gen 3 to see if it got fixed.

But, yes, all 6 originals are different, CSX2299 (the first of the Italian coupes) being the most different. The Italians supposed made some styling judgement decisions that, while making it IMHO the best-looking of the 6, made it the slowest of the 6 at Le Mans. The shape of the roof on 2299 did 2 things, it raised the coefficient of drag Enough to slow it 4 or 5 mph on the Mulsanne but it also made the car Dan Gurney’s favorite because his lanky frame had more head-room in 2299.

Fun info!