The Indigo Story
Indigo show car — not running but capable of quick conversion with a powertrain — as the centerpiece of Ford’s 1996 Detroit Auto Show display.
This article is reproduced with the kind permission of the Aston Martin Heritage Trust and was first published in ASTON #22 in December 2020. ASTON is the AMHT’s annual publication and has won numerous awards for its writing and excellent, unique articles. The AMHT was formed in 1998 as an education charity with two main goals. Firstly to collect and preserve the rich history and heritage of Aston Martin through huge photographic and document archives together with an extensive collection of artefacts and cars. The second goal is to share that story with the public through the Aston Martin Museum and with researchers, authors, TV producers, owners and of course, Aston Martin Lagonda themselves. Learn more about the AMHT at http://amht.org.uk.
The Ford Indigo, just like the DB7 Vantage, is part of the early development of the Aston Martin V12 engine (1). Just like the DB7 Vantage, how it fits historically into the story of such a significant engine has not been well understood outside the small team that made it happen.
Many articles and rumors state that the Indigo was a Ford project car showcasing a ‘what if ’ engine and that Aston Martin Lagonda (AML), as part of the Ford family at the time, was only later deemed a good destination for it. That perception is completely false; in fact, the complete opposite is true. The real story behind the Indigo is far more interesting…
It was the first few months of 1995 and we were progressing rapidly on the development of the V12. By this time, we had firmly settled on the DB7 Vantage as the ‘prime program’ for its production debut. Our small team was working at a feverish pace to deliver the first V12 prototypes later that fall. By this time, the V12 program, while still a closely held secret, was starting to garner the interest of a very small number of key executives at the highest levels of Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo).
The principal driver of this was Jim Clarke, who – as Chief Engineer of Advanced Powertrain Engineering – was quietly showing this select group of peers and superiors in FoMoCo management the excellent progress on the V12 program to date. Don Nowland, Bernard Ibrahim and I were lucky enough to be leading the design and development of this new V12 for the DB7 Vantage at the beginning of our careers, and we were firmly focused on delivering it. With Jim discussing the excellent progress on the V12 within this very small circle of key executives, ideas were starting to be generated as to where else we could use this new, in-development powerplant. I had an excellent rapport with Jim by this time, and one day, he came to me and said we (meaning the executives) are looking at what we can do with the Gen 3 Mazda RX-7 platform and thinking maybe there’s an opportunity for the V12 there. It should be noted that use of the RX-7 platform and V12 together wouldn’t necessarily constitute a Mazda-branded end-product, but it was merely a look at how this combination of engine and platform with minimal modifications could potentially be used in any of the worldwide Ford brands at the time.
It’s important to keep in mind that in those days Ford had a 24.5% stake in Mazda. That was raised to 33.4% in May 1995 – right around the time the executives were playing with this idea. Of course, I knew full well of the RX-7 but wasn’t familiar with the engineering specifics beneath the sheet metal of the vehicle in any detail at the time. Even so, I was pretty sure the V12 wasn’t going to fit in the Gen 3 RX-7 platform as it stood. Though, I was also thinking about how the RX-7 is well regarded as an excellent chassis, with a very powerful new twin rotor, sequentially turbocharged Wankel engine. So I said to Jim: “Let me take a look at it for you… it would be best if we can borrow one for a thorough review.” Within a short time, I had the keys to an RX-7, internally on loan for a week or so. Hearing of Jim’s proposal, Bernard looked incredulously at me and said, “There’s no way the V12 will fit in that chassis!” I replied, “You don’t know that!” and asked him if he had measured it. Begrudgingly, he admitted he had not but still insisted he was certain it wouldn’t fit. Bernard followed me as I walked through the front main lobby of the small building our team was located in, just next to the main Advanced Powertrain Engineering building in Allen Park, Michigan. Approaching the car, keys in hand, I said that I was doing a complete evaluation of this car for Jim. The last item on my evaluation list was the V12 packaging feasibility review (the actual measuring to confirm if it will fit or not). I gave Bernard the choice to shut up and get in or I would leave without him. We both got in the car, spending the rest of the day thoroughly evaluating the vehicle dynamics on the track, pushing the car to the very limits on every measure.
I was able to quickly measure the packaging possibilities of the V12 in that platform just before returning the borrowed car. Those quick measurements confirmed what I suspected all along: the V12 as it existed really wasn’t a fit in that platform. I reported these findings back to Jim and returned the keys. It’s worth noting that Don, Bernard and I all eagerly accepted the keys for absolutely anything with a motor in it, no matter how seemingly ordinary or boring. FoMoCo had not only a long list of great in-house vehicles, but it also had an entire fleet of competitive vehicles from around the world, as well as the ability to borrow almost anything from other manufacturers.
As young engineers, we saw any opportunity like this as a way of expanding our vehicle knowledge and experience. All of the many, many vehicles we got our hands on and what happened with them are an entire collection of stories all on their own! But back to the story at hand…
A short time after looking at the V12 in the RX-7 platform had run its course, Jacques “Jac” Nasser became interested in the V12 engine project and saw that the program was quickly progressing well. Ford competitor Chrysler, through Dodge, was having excellent success in the market at the time with its brand-enhancing ‘Halo’ car, the Dodge Viper. Jac really started pushing for the idea to make a ‘Ford Supercar’ to trounce the Viper using the in-development V12. Unlike the Viper, which was an arguably updated version of the ironically Ford/Shelby/AC Cobra, the Indigo was to be a state-of-theart, technology-laden, modern ‘tour de force’. A small team for the Supercar, incorporating our existing small engine team was put together to secretly work on the concept.
As everything was quickly coming together, we also learned that designer Adrian Reynard was coming in to engineer the car to be powered by our V12 – an exciting development. His Reynard Motorsport family of companies was the up-and-coming motorsport organization. One was Reynard Special Vehicle Projects (RSVP, a neat touch), and this would lead the Reynard effort on the project. Adrian had picked John Piper, a man with extensive motorsport, vehicle design and development experience, to head RSVP.
The design goal was to develop a real running and drivable Ford Supercar concept demonstrator to debut at the 1996 Detroit Auto Show – difficult, as we all had mere months to design and build a vehicle from a clean sheet. At first, the car was internally referred to as the Technology Sports Car, or TSC, but that wasn’t going to do for the debut – it needed a name. The idea of calling the car ‘Mongoose’ had come up – a snake killer in nature and a great metaphor for what Ford planned the new car would do to the Viper. The name didn’t stick, and the car was eventually titled ‘Indigo’, already used informally by the styling team.
Much of the press later reported that the Indigo was a play on the words ‘Indy’ and ‘Go’ – and this was true. The IndyCar reference played well to the deep involvement of both Reynard and Ford in IndyCar racing at the time. But a little-known fact is that Jac was a proponent of using a darker shade, ‘Indigo Blue’, for the famous Blue Oval badge, and that the Ford Indigo concept cars (there were three in various forms of road worthiness/completion/intended use) were to have this blue on their badges.
While we were delighted to be working on such a highperformance car, we weren’t sure how we were going to fit in all of this additional work. After all, our team was quite small by most standards and the DB7 Vantage program was already on a speeded-up course of development. How was I going to juggle two aggressive vehicle programs and graduate school (working for my MBA at the University of Michigan) all at the same time? I had no idea, but I wasn’t willing to give up on any of them. All three of us leading the V12 effort were very enthusiastic and willing to work as hard as humanly possible to make it all happen, no matter what it was going to take.
Everyone was working very hard, and our boss at the time, Robert “Bob” Natkin, fully backed us all up with HR when our hours were ‘red flagged’, letting them know that, in fact, we had worked those seemingly crazy overtime hours supporting multiple critical projects on extremely tight schedules.
Several months into the Indigo program, it was getting a lot of attention at the highest levels of Ford and becoming a serious possibility for production. This created a lot of confusion as to how resources should be prioritized with two programs (Indigo and DB7 Vantage) vying for priority on the new engine. While the V12 engine team considered both vehicles important, we also knew the Indigo at this point was maturing quickly as a concept demonstrator, but it wasn’t really designed for production yet, in its current form. In contrast, the DB7 Vantage was on a direct path to a production-ready implementation. Not that any of this mattered – what really did in the end was the eventual priority decided by management. In the meantime, our job was to mature both programs as quickly and thoroughly as possible, so we were best prepared for any and all possibilities. As the possibility of a production Indigo was growing, Multimatic (2) was brought in to take on any later-iteration Indigo production cars, with RSVP fully leading the concept car design and build.
Jac let the entire team know the importance of maintaining absolute secrecy. We even had to keep Indigo secret from then Ford CEO Alex Trotman. The plan was that once we got the Indigo far enough along, the team, with Jac leading, would put together a presentation to really impress Trotman and a meeting was soon scheduled. Charts and graphs were prepared, shoes polished, and suits pressed – most employees never got the chance to see the CEO, let alone present to him in person. The day before the meeting was arranged, it was cancelled. We heard that Ford's quarterly earnings, due to be released, weren’t as strong as expected, and the ‘timing’ of presenting a project like the Indigo to the CEO wasn’t ideal.
Another was scheduled; again, it was cancelled. This time, the CEO was unwell, and it wasn’t the best time to make the presentation. The scheduling and cancellation process went through a few more cycles, and still the Ford CEO was unaware of the exciting project. As recounted in ASTON 21, the V12’s design allowed for future racing plans and use in a mid-engined supercar. If the V12 was successful, all of these possibilities were in the frame. We even imagined that maybe someday AML would compete in F1 – obviously not with the original V12 (by any stretch!) but with a dedicated engine design. At the time of writing, I am happy to see it looks like it is happening, and I wish the new team good luck and hope to see them at the top of the podium someday soon!
One of the problems with the speed of all this coming together was that the team was designing and planning for DB7 Vantage production. Early versions of the parts were designed specifically for installation in the DB7 Vantage. Suddenly, we needed to bring the final design of a lot more of the Indigo’s unique quickly to fruition. We couldn’t do it all, so we decided the best path was to support the Indigo concept with a DB7 Vantage version of the engine, with changes only as needed. To further save time, for the concept car we were willing to implement ‘demonstrator’ versions of parts that weren’t as highly developed and then redesign them for production on a later Indigo version if we were tasked with engineering a production version. The toughest requests from Adrian and John at RSVP were to bring the engine CG (Center of Gravity) down by lowering it with a dry sump system and making the engine a fully stressed structural member in the chassis. We weren’t quite ready to make those significant changes on such a tight timeline. One night, shortly after proposing these ideas to us, the RSVP team took us to dinner. They appealed to us on the considerable technical merits of these two changes that would dramatically improve the vehicle dynamics due to a lower CG and significantly reduced vehicle weight. When we left dinner that night, we were convinced; though, we didn’t know how we were going to pull this off quickly.
V12 engine initial mate to Indigo main bulkhead with underbody tray. Small-diameter multi-plate clutch can be seen attached to the crankshaft. Transmission and rear suspension not yet installed.
Our biggest area of concern was fully stressing the cylinder block as the main structural member just aft of the cockpit bulkhead. Through analysis, some clever small changes and a number of new parts, the design was going to work extremely well as a fully stressed structural member. The dry sump was going to be a little trickier, as it was more of a tear-up of the existing configuration. We decided to keep it as simple as possible by minimizing precious engineering resource expenditure and focusing on a design that would suffice for a demonstrator that wasn’t really ‘production ready’.
Since the Indigo (not yet styled at that time, but we knew the general plan) was going to be ‘open cockpit’ (or roofless) like an IndyCar, we decided we could eliminate the A/C compressor on the FEAD (Front End Accessory Drive) and use that position for a new dry sump pump. We eliminated the internal (wet sump) conventional oil pump from the DB7 Vantage (found on the front of the crankshaft behind the front cover) and mounted a new oil pump, including both pressure and scavenge sections, where the A/C compressor was formerly mounted. While not completely off-the-shelf, we were able to work with Aviaid pumps to have them make a dry sump pump to our specifications that utilized their existing capabilities and tooling. They were easy to work with, and we had a fully functioning pump, to our specifications, set-up just for the V12 in weeks – and it worked perfectly out of the box. This arrangement utilized the accessory drive belt to drive the oil pump. I was okay with this arrangement for a one-off demonstrator, but I would never consider this design acceptable for a production version, for if you lose the accessory drive belt, you will lose the engine!
This pump, along with a number of newly designed parts, such as the structural dry sump base plate in place of the conventional wet sump oil pan from the DB7 Vantage, functioned well and was reasonably neatly packaged. For a production version, we certainly needed to focus efforts on a more cleanly packaged, integrated, robust and optimized design. This rapid succession of design advancements and configurations would go a long way in developing, testing and ultimately proving out many of the originally envisioned V12 design adaptability and growth provisions, leading the way for many future road and race vehicles using the V12.
Supporting both programs was really proving to be a tough endeavor. The original thinking was to support the Indigo with one of the prototype engines, but the schedule was so tight that, to make the 1996 Detroit Auto Show with a real running concept vehicle, the very first V12 engine was going to have to be earmarked for the Indigo. We were always planning on having some of the first engines on dynos so that we could validate and develop the calibration of the design as much as possible. The Indigo would then have a prototype engine in it with as much testing and development as we could squeeze in. But now, we were faced with having mere hours to do rudimentary testing and development on the very first V12 before shipping it the UK to be installed in the Indigo. We communicated to Ford management and the entire vehicle team that this meant the development would be so short that we needed to limit the car to ‘parade’ driving until we could do more work on the V12.
A great shot that shows the Indigo’s unique fabricated exhaust headers.
We had the dry sump and many other special changes for the Indigo all incorporated into prototype V12 engine no. 1. One thing we didn’t have ready were the Indigo exhaust headers – the dyno runs would have to be with DB7 Vantage manifolds. One of the big limitations of CAD (Computer Aided Design) programs of the day was that some complex parts, such as tubular, equal-length runner exhaust manifolds, were easier to design and build in the real world than modeling them on CAD. Once the real-world design was completed, a CAD model could be made more easily from the finished part measurements. So we had a highly skilled welder fabricate the DB7 Vantage exhaust manifolds with the use of a prototype DB7 chassis, and only later transferred those real parts back into CAD models and drawings. We planned a similar path for the Indigo, but that would have to wait, as the chassis was not complete. In fact, the plan was to ship the engine without exhaust manifolds from the US to the UK. In the UK, where the Indigo was being constructed, we would bring the engine together with the chassis and fabricate unique, equal-length runner tubular exhaust manifolds. Within the design constraints of the car, the Indigo final design ended up rather reminiscent of the original Ford GT40 exhaust manifolds (without the crossovers – unnecessary for a V12), as they immediately curved up from the exhaust ports and routed up and over the rear suspension A-arms.
The V12 engine was installed in the Indigo in the UK with the new exhaust headers and was ready for testing as a fully running chassis sans any bodywork around the third week of November 1995. This was just a few short weeks ahead of the Detroit Auto Show, so finishing and installing bodywork was going to be a challenge – but the test couldn’t wait on the body. At the same time, the Ford global marketing team was pressuring us for ‘the numbers’ on the new Indigo V12, as they were starting to prepare press information on the car for release at the show. We had a ridiculously short time on the dyno and told them we weren’t ready with numbers since the calibration was just a very preliminary one and not optimized at all. Also, the very short time dyno testing was all conducted with DB7 Vantage manifolds – not the proper Indigo ones, which had yet to be designed and optimized. The DB7 Vantage manifolds had very tight package constraints in the vehicle and we knew the Indigo was going to be much, much better, but they pressured us anyway. Not wanting to waste any more time fighting a battle we just didn’t have any data for, and to get them off of our backs, we gave them the 435HP and 405ft-lb of torque that we were already achieving on a very preliminary calibration with the wrong DB7 Vantage manifolds. These were much more restrictive and with shorter runners than desired, due to that car’s packaging constraints. We knew we would end up much better than those numbers for sure, but we also felt good about not over promising anything more than we had already proven in the test cell. The marketing team, satisfied, ran with those numbers and, in all the press I have seen to date, they stuck – they are wrong, but they stuck. The car ended up having much more power and torque than advertised.
Since the total engine time on the dynamometer at the point we shipped the engine to be installed in the Indigo was incredibly short, not only did we not have the needed time to optimize the calibration (engine tuning) for steady state (constant speed operation), but we had almost no time developing any transient calibration (tuning for rapid engine speed changes). In other words, without sorting this out, the drivability of the engine would be incredibly poor when in the car.
Tim Brooks in the “go car” with a Ford RCON (Research CONsole, made by Loral Aerospace) for programming the two Ford EEC-IV engine controller computers.
Luckily, we had the good fortune of having Timothy “Tim” J Brooks working in Ford Advanced Powertrain. Tim was working on other projects and we recruited his help, knowing he was highly regarded as an incredibly smart and talented calibrator. Our brief to Tim was that we needed a solid calibration that was very drivable and ‘safe’ for the engine. Safe in the sense of the fuel and spark calibration, which allowed the engine to always keep from detonating, burning up an exhaust valve, etc. – this all with very little testing data and development time. We told Tim not to worry about optimizing fuel economy or emissions for now – we know the engine is capable and we will get to that later. To start with, Tim only had some basic dyno data and virtually no transient testing had been carried out by this time. To make matters worse, the Indigo’s engine had never been run with the manifolds that were to be used when the engine was installed in the car. Tim got to work, using what he had (early dyno data, intake runner manifold info, cam profiles, planned Indigo exhaust runner lengths, etc.) to come up with a ‘quick and safe’ calibration. While the Indigo prototype didn’t have the exhaust catalysts required for a production car, we did install HEGO (Heated Exhaust Gas Oxygen – or commonly referred to simply as ‘oxygen sensors’) sensors in the exhaust. The oxygen sensors allowed us to measure the A/F (air/fuel) ratio (as well as inform the computer) during operation, telling us how things were running. Normally, these sensors are just meant for control trimming (once warmed up and in closedloop control), but with the limited time on the dyno, we were using the (wideband) oxygen sensors to help us quickly quantify, mature and refine the calibration with the engine installed in the car as best we could, given the constraints – as opposed to doing it properly on a dyno.
The V12 employed two Ford EEC-IV (Electronic Engine Control – Gen. 4) modules for engine control. The early calibration was preliminary but very drivable, as we would soon find out. The Ford styling team was still making last minute changes to the final body design, and they were running late. The program could not wait, and the vehicle was brought to Silverstone for testing as a rolling chassis with complete powertrain but minus any bodywork – that would have to come later. RSVP brought in racing driver Andy Wallace (3) to drive it. Bernard Ibrahim represented the engine team on site and John Piper of RSVP lead the test session. Since there was so little time with the engine on the dyno and it had never been in a car before, Andy was told to “take it easy”, as the operating envelope of the vehicle was to be expanded slowly. It was also obvious to Andy that this unfinished vehicle lacked any rollover protection at this point, so it was naturally expected he would be cautious. The first lap was conducted at a reasonable pace. The second was moderately higher and a good expansion of the envelope, but on the third lap, as the vehicle approached, the engine could be heard revving much, much higher and faster than on the first two laps. As the car passed the pits, it blasted by at top speed. Bernard looked to John and said, “What’s the story?” John looked down, shook his head and simply said, “Driver!” When Andy pulled into the pits, Bernard asked Andy what was he thinking. Andy said that the car felt really good and he thought it was okay to “take it up”. At this point, the car had a pretty limited top speed of about 130mph since the gearbox at the time of the test was using gearing straight out of an IndyCar, and the V12 didn’t rev as high as a 2.65-litre turbo V8 Indy engine, so it would run out of revs far before it ran out of power. Shortly after the test, the intended gears for the V12 were ready and subsequently swapped out from the IndyCar ratios used for Silverstone, thus removing the (artificial) speed limitation.
When it came to the initial calibration, it was awesome for a first pass in both steady state and rapid transients. Beyond any doubt, Tim had nailed it. It was very drivable, without any stumbles or hesitation, all the while keeping everything within safe limits. One curious thing we noticed was what was happening with the fuel learning algorithm. The EECIV modules incorporated a pretty standard learning algorithm that Ford employed for ‘trimming’ the system for normal variances and wear, allowing the computer to optimize parameters and keep them optimized over time. In normal operation, this was a clever way of keeping things ideally tuned in real-world conditions. In the case of the Indigo V12, the computers kept revising the fuel table nominal values up. The system had pre-programmed in limits to these adjustments meant to keep parameters from wandering too far from factory settings on production vehicles. We had to revise the ‘nominal’ fueling values upwards three times before the system stopped moving quickly to the upper bounds and hitting the programmed top of range limits. We knew that the Indigo exhaust tuning was helping the engine to breathe much, much better and make significantly more power than we had seen on any dyno test to date. While we never did get the exact Indigo setup back on the dyno (other parts of V12 development were more critical as we moved forward), but based on the airflow and fuel numbers, the Indigo was making over 500HP and 475ft-lb of torque as installed in the car. This was well above the published numbers.
Indigo rolling out for the first track test. John Piper in the green jacket just behind the vehicle, Andy Wallace at the wheel.
With the initial testing done in late November 1995, it was time to get the bodywork finished and installed, as there was a very short time to get the car completed and shipped to the US for the January 1996 Detroit Auto Show. A few problems arose. Originally, two fully functional cars were planned. A third, less complete ‘model’ was also made but never intended to be a full vehicle, but time was running short and two complete sets of all of the prototype parts weren’t available for the debut date. The plan was then simplified to make one running car (the ‘Go’ car) and a second car (the ‘Show’ car) that was fully capable of being converted to a finished ‘Go’ car later. Now that the two cars had differing short-term objectives, much could be done in parallel and a little differently if needed to have them both make the auto show. One of these issues was the windshields. We had several prototype windshields coming but the second one was going to be slightly behind the first. The ‘Go’ car had a few other small items to sort, so the simpler ‘Show’ car got its body and the first windshield before the ‘Go’ car. Ford Management wanted the second windshield installed on the ‘Go’ car, but RSVP couldn’t wait for it and still make the auto show. Adrian gave them a choice: have the ‘Go’ car miss the debut (the ‘Show’ car would be available) or finish the car without the windshield. There was a lot of back and forth because management wanted both, but once they realized they had to choose one or the other, they opted to take the ‘Go’ car without the windshield. Their decision was fundamentally centered on the fact that they wanted to make a big splash with the Indigo and the new V12 at the auto show. And they wanted to debut the vehicle by having it, totally unexpectedly, roar into the show for the worldwide press debut. More on that later.
To compensate for the lack of a windshield on the ‘Go’ car, a clever aerodynamic trick was employed: an ‘air knife’ was designed into the front ‘hood area’ of the car. It scooped up air as the vehicle moved forward and ejected it upwards from a slit. This slit ran across the car just ahead of the dashboard and extended across the car from between and just forward of where both of the sideview mirrors were mounted. It worked quite well and did an excellent job of keeping most of the wind out of the occupants’ faces when driving the car, despite its total lack of a windshield. If you look closely, you can see many of the press photos with the ‘Go’ car clearly showing these details, as well as the much more obvious complete lack of a windshield. But there were a few other problems with the cars. The final approved styling for the cars was sent to the UK in early December 1995, a mere few weeks before the scheduled debut. This only provided enough time to make a ‘show concept body’ and left little time for a properly engineered body, let alone a production-ready one. As part of this ‘show car only’ shortcut, there really wasn’t any real structural significance to the body. It was just a ‘show shell’ mounted on the very light, fully structural, well-engineered composite monocoque below. One of the casualties of this was that the ‘rollover structure’ was all show and nothing beyond a façade. But since this was only going to be a concept-only car, this should be okay with appropriate restrictions on driving it.
For aerodynamics, RSVP designed Indigo to have a flat bottom and a rear diffuser to assist downforce. This would be brought together with the final styling of the car provided by Ford design when it became available. It’s important to understand that the styling portion of the car was approached wholly as a design exercise and without any real aerodynamic considerations beyond ‘looking aerodynamic’ to the styling team, as aero just was not part of their expertise. To check the vehicle aerodynamics after integrating earlier planned RSVP underbody aerodynamic features combined with Ford styling, a rolling road, small-scale, wind-tunnel model was made to test its abilities. It turned out the car had a lot of lift – even with the flat bottom and rear diffuser integrated – and not only that, there was more lift in the front. In other words, given enough speed, and the car had plenty of power to do it, the car would have lifted off the ground nose-first and flipped over backwards. Adrian brought this to the attention of Ford management and requested to work with the Ford design center to make styling changes to address this issue. But they would have none of it and insisted the vehicle was simply a show car – there was no danger – and the final styling had already officially been signed off. Adrian was clearly concerned and told us that he really had big concerns about releasing a car from his company with so much power in an incredibly light chassis (1,800lb/816kg at Silverstone) – remember it now had the revised gear ratios in the transmission. So it would be much faster than earlier, when testing was done without the body at Silverstone. Adrian was trying to figure out the best way to resolve the situation and keep everyone happy. We, the engine team, told Adrian we had learned a few things about navigating the ‘Ford system’ and that he would likely never convince management to change the styling because they just wouldn’t perceive it as a real risk. We discussed what it would take to make the car ‘neutral’ or just have some downforce to prevent any possibility of it getting airborne, simply for safety not ultimate performance.
He said he thought his team could do it with a host of small changes. Once we heard that, we advised him to just do it and don’t tell anyone. We said, “Do you think anyone in management or styling is ever going to measure the car after it is built? As long as the accolades are rolling in, they will all be consumed with basking in the success of the project.” We could see a little bit of a relieved look on both Adrian’s and John’s faces, and I am certain they thought we were crazy kids… But the RSVP team went ahead and quietly did just as we suggested. They made a whole host of small changes that were almost imperceptible to the eye but aerodynamically significant. They also gave the car a nose-down rake by lowering the front suspension and raising the rear, both ever-so-slightly. All of the changes made the car significantly safer to drive at high speed. But it was never going to be driven at high speeds as a show concept car – right?
Subtle changes incorporated, the car was finished, shipped and, with just a little time to spare, made it to its debut in Detroit. The whole team that worked on the car was eagerly awaiting the reveal and hoping to be present for it. We were told that the car, even though completed, was still highly secret, even within Ford, and we were told it was important that we kept it that way. Our invitation to the unveiling never arrived; although, we did get to go the blacktie pre-opening charity event. I had a well-placed friend at the official debut, and he related what unfolded. He was standing just a few feet away from Alex Trotman as everyone was watching the day’s vehicle unveilings. In a surprise to all, just before the next scheduled vehicle debut, everyone could hear a tremendous noise suddenly coming from backstage. The Indigo V12 had fired up and seconds later roared onto the stage. Jac Nasser led the introduction and, with microphone in hand, pronounced: “Introducing the Ford Indigo,” continuing with the details of the program. As soon as Jac introduced the car, my friend related to me that Trotman angrily turned to one of his trusted lieutenants and said, “What the hell is that... and why wasn’t I told about it?” The deputy didn’t know, and my eyewitness didn’t fully understand what had just happened either. But later, when this story was related to me, it hit me like a bolt of lightning: this was one of those moments as a young person at the start of your career that you gain an instant insight into how ‘things really work’. I remembered that we were ‘never able to get in front of Alex’ to present the Indigo program. I now knew that we were not meant to – and that it was also important (to Jac) that none of us knew this. I kept this revelation to myself.
The Detroit Auto Show was a very successful reveal. After that, the Indigo was to be shipped to Australia for the 1996 F1 season-opening race to be a major part of the Ford marketing efforts at the Grand Prix. We strongly emphasized that the car was very, very early in its development and to be restricted to ‘parade’ driving only. We were assured that this would be the case. In addition to being early in development, the Indigo was intended as a ‘concept demonstrator’ only and had not had the engineering time put in to ‘refine’ the car. This was due to both the limited time to design it, as well as the focus on the DB7 Vantage, which was on a clear production path. If the Indigo was successful in generating interest to move forward with a production version, we were fully aware of the many issues we would need to address for a thoroughly engineered road car. When I mention refinement, most readers’ minds will instantly jump to items that the driver and passenger will interface directly with, such as feedback from the vehicle, fit and finish, noise levels (specifically no objectionable squeaks and rattles), quality of materials, etc. In fact, the Indigo really did an excellent job of having very mature levels in all of the aforementioned areas. RSVP used its extensive knowledge and skill to make the Indigo truly exceptional (a race car for the road) right from the start. The areas of refinement that would later require engineering effort were the areas that most people never think about because they don’t even know they are a problem, since vehicles with serious issues rarely make it to production.
I will use one example, as it was in its original form only meant to be a concept. The cooling system had a water radiator in each side-pod. These were lower than the engine and required special care and knowledge of the system specifics to ensure that all the air was properly purged from the critical areas when the system was filled with coolant. If the purge is not properly done, at best the system will not function properly, at worst serious damage can occur. On most regular production cars, lengthy development work is put in to ensure that you simply fill the system up and drive away; even if that extra topping-up after a brief drive is not done, production cars are designed to work just fine. Racing cars rarely have that level of refinement – hence a swarm of technicians over them in the pits and paddock.
We fully understood, even though senior management didn’t (and didn't seem to want to hear about it), that the Indigo concept demonstrator required that sort of level of attention. We convinced senior management that someone needed to accompany the car to Australia. Derek Fowler, who worked at Ford Advanced Engineering and had experience crewing IndyCars, was the ideal person. The go-ahead was given to send Derek with the Indigo to Australia as a temporary assignment away from his regular Ford job. After a short briefing on the Indigo’s systems and special required procedures, we felt he was fully competent to handle everything. We emphasized the car needed to be restricted to relatively low-speed driving since it had very little development time on it. He acknowledged this; we felt comfortable he would be able to handle everything.
For air-freighting the car to Australia, it was well known that all the fluids needed to be drained and refilled at the destination. Things were planned accordingly for Derek to have everything he needed to prepare the car for local events after landing. However, one item was missed. The Indigo featured a gearbox that was shifted using paddles on the steering wheel. The gearbox was internally a Hewland unit straight out of an IndyCar, except for the now revised, post-Silverstone test, higher final-drive ratio. The system automated the manual gearbox so that anyone could drive it with a simple briefing on paddle operation. The actual shifts were accomplished by a pneumatic system that, when commanded by the control computer, supplied regulated, low-pressure air from an extremely high-pressure bottle/reservoir to pneumatic cylinders. The system, as set-up, had no way of being recharged by the car – no on-board pump – and was simply required to be removed and replaced or recharged as required. This was one of those compromises to quickly make a concept demonstrator. The gas in the cylinder was the inert gas nitrogen, compressed to several thousand psi in a very small and lightweight high-pressure bottle. The aircarrier rightly considered this a flight risk and demanded the bottle was discharged before the flight. This was a last-minute change and advanced plans were not made to recharge the bottle in Australia. Derek had his hands full getting the car prepped after landing, and one of the things he was not able to cover was to find a specialized local firm to recharge this type of high-pressure bottle. There was a backup manual shifter that Derek installed for the events.
Running chassis “go car” coming together with side pods, cooling radiators, transmission, suspension and brakes installed.
As stated earlier, we let Derek know the car was to be restricted to low speeds; however, I do not recall anyone (myself included) really letting Derek know the rollover bars in the car were simply ornamental and completely nonfunctional. We figured the car was going to be restricted to low-speed operation anyway. This is where things got really out of hand. The Marketing and Public Relations teams in Australia decided that they should use the car to maximum effect and give rides to select personnel, such as the press, Ford executives, Ford partners and VIPs. Furthermore, they decided to utilize Sauber-Ford F1 drivers Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Johnny Herbert, as well as local Ford saloon heroes Dick Johnson and John Bowe. I am quite certain no one informed any of the drivers to go easy on the car — they certainly did not. As early as I was in my career, I wouldn’t have anticipated things getting this far out of control and (incorrectly) assumed simple instructions would, and could, be followed. I now know that someone in Derek’s position would have effectively lost any control over the car once he completed the post-shipping preparations and turned the car over to the Ford executives who were running the show – admittedly without any real knowledge of the risks they were undertaking. The car endured hours of flogging in the hands of all four race drivers giving joyrides to many, many Ford guests, and I was told the car was clocked going as fast as 193mph… When we finally did learn about what went on in Australia, you can imagine that our team was horrified. More than a few choice and unrepeatable expletives flew around the office as we realized that Ford had dodged a major bullet and no one in upper management even knew it. I had realized immediately that the actions the RSVP team took to revise and rectify (without official approval) the vehicle aerodynamics nearly certainly saved at least the lives of any occupants who would have had zero rollover protection, not to mention those of the bystanders if the car became uncontrollably airborne. Once we got over the initial shock of how out-of-control things became in Australia, we realized how well the very first V12 engine we bolted together for the entire program had performed, beyond our expectations, with so very few development hours on it.
We were a little frustrated that the vast majority of the feedback on what the car had achieved in Australia came back to us almost exclusively through press reports, with nothing from senior management. While Don, Bernard and I were discussing our mutual frustration at the lack of any management feedback, Bernard took it upon himself to go into the PROFS (an early email program from IBM for Ford) system. Bernard quickly found Jac Nasser’s contact details and said to Don and me: “I’m going to call Jac directly and see how he liked the car.”
While we were all working on this high-profile project, Jac didn’t know any of us on anything like a first-name basis, so it would have been highly unusual for someone at our level to contact him. Don and I both told Bernard we didn’t think it was a good idea, but when asked why, we couldn’t come up with a great reason. Bernard stated again that he just wanted to get Jac’s feedback on the car, and he placed the call. Immediately, Bernard was connected with Jac’s assistant. She asked Bernard what exactly he wanted with Jac, and he stated he was looking for direct feedback on the Indigo after the Australian Grand Prix.
She then asked for his full name and department, he gave her the requested information, she took it down and routinely ended the call with him. We thought that was it and Bernard would hear nothing further, but it was highly unusual for someone at Bernard’s level to attempt to call Jac Nasser, so she immediately assumed him to be a security risk. Her urgent inquiry worked its way down the chain of command – vice presidents, then division heads, etc. – asking if this guy was a disgruntled employee and a threat. We were all at a low enough level in the company that none of them knew us directly. I believe Jim Clarke (Chief Engineer of Advanced Powertrain) was unavailable that day, so the urgent request within a few hours of the initial call eventually came to our direct boss, Bob Natkin. Bob assured everyone that Bernard was not a threat and he would discuss the matter immediately with Bernard directly. Bob came in our offices and asked Bernard if he called Jac. Bernard immediately said that he did and asked, “Is there a problem?” to which Bob said, “We need to talk.” Bob took Bernard aside privately and asked him why he called Jac. He told Bob he simply wanted direct high-level feedback on the Indigo Australian F1 event. He was told that you can’t just call Jac – it just is not company protocol. “I thought here at Ford we have our ‘open-door policy’ that the executives brag about all the time,” said Bernard. Bob smiled and said, “Yes, yes the company ‘officially has’ an open-door policy, but we don’t really have an open-door policy.” The PROFS system was soon adjusted so the contact details of really high-level staff were removed.
For a time, the Indigo was under serious consideration as a limited-production halo car. I believe Jac used it as a feather in his cap to prove to the Board that, unlike the then CEO Alex Trotman, he was more capable of getting the public excited about Ford and used the Indigo as a prime example. The Indigo program proved so contentious at the highest levels that the car was cancelled due to the furor it was creating internally. Jac eventually went on to be CEO of Ford, so in the end it might have served its original intended purpose. After the cancellation of the Indigo, the DB7 Vantage clearly remained the program to debut the production V12. Early in October 1996, Jim Clarke asked me to give a brief one-on-one presentation to Alex Trotman on the status of the V12 program. Since it was one-on-one, the process turned out to be much more casual than I was expecting. Alex Trotman greeted me warmly, and I presented the information I had prepared. I knew from the Detroit Auto Show ‘incident’ that this program was a likely thorn in Alex’s side. I also knew there was really no way he would know what I knew about those events. I enjoyed my short time briefing Trotman and I felt he left with the same thoughts. A short time later, Jim Clarke specifically sent me a brief personal memo thanking me for the presentation.
Soon after the Australian trip, Derek Fowler returned to his regular Ford job. The Indigo as a limited-production possibility ended sometime after that. But even after the Indigo as a program was officially off the table, the prototype was still around, often stored in our team office/garage area, and was popular with Ford executives and well-placed VIPs who wanted a go behind the wheel. As such, ultimate control of the car was put under another group, and it was assigned a manager, “Bill” (I can’t remember his last name). He was a nice enough guy, already part of the Indigo team from the vehicle side, but he didn’t have the technical background to really keep the Indigo well maintained and ready to go like Derek could. It wasn’t Bill’s job, as he was meant to schedule the car for events, arrange shipping, etc. We were trying to keep focused on the DB7 Vantage, and all of these requests for ‘executive and VIP drives’ were becoming a nuisance.
Specifically, because the development car required more support than is typical, and we were constantly being dragged in to make sure it was ready to go for an ‘important person’ to drive. We told Bill that supporting the car with these frequent drives was really starting to interfere with progressing the DB7 Vantage. We had never been allowed to drive the car and realized this was likely our chance. We told Bill we needed to go through the car thoroughly for him and follow up with a test. He initially declined, and we firmly told him we couldn’t guarantee anything without a shakedown and confirmation drive after thoroughly going over everything. Backed into a corner, he at last agreed. We went through the car and found many items that had not been properly attended to and made sure they were all taken care of. Shortly thereafter, shakedown day came, and we arrived at the handling course at the Dearborn Proving Ground to thoroughly check it out. We built up slowly at first and made sure everything was functioning as expected. Once we were satisfied the car was solid and all systems were a ‘go’, it was time to really run the car through its paces.
Bernard was behind the wheel as we started to really push the car. We went to 9.9 tenths, not 10 tenths, realizing the car still had no roll structure, but we were young and relatively fearless. As we passed close to the observation/pit area, Bernard looked over at me and said, “Wave!” Even though we were sitting side by side and he said it loudly, it was hard to hear him as we both had helmets on, the car was open cockpit, the exhaust was loud and he was working his way through the gears hard on the throttle at every possible instant. I heard him, but I didn’t think I had heard him correctly at the time. As Bernard busily worked his way around the track as fast as he could, once he had a small break, he looked over at me again and repeatedly said, “Wave! I need you to wave!” Right then, as we lapped the handling course and came around to the pit area, I could see Bill jumping up and down, waving his arms frantically and completely freaking out. I got the message. As we screamed past the pits at full throttle, I waved back at Bill and, for good measure, threw in some hardy intermittent thumbs-ups! We did this for many laps, quickening our lap times as we went. Finally, we pulled into the pit, and Bill, exasperated and a little angry, quickly walked up to the car and said, “I was not waving!” Bernard and I politely said, “Oh, sorry. The good news is that the car checks out okay!”
While the Indigo never went into production, it had an outsize influence in a number of ways, some well-known but many not. A few years later, many on the vehicle team, though none of us on the engine team, went on to do the new Ford GT and the Indigo was brought to the Ford GT team office for inspiration and ideas.
Multimatic, though they never got the chance to build the Indigo chassis for production, later went on to build the chassis for the Ford GT Mk II, Aston Martin One-77 and Aston Martin Vulcan. The company is slated to do the production chassis for both the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG One. The group of Reynard companies continued to be very successful in many forms of racing, including various open-wheel series and Le Mans prototypes. It was also one of the founders of the BAR F1 team. The V12 first publicly showcased in the Ford Indigo went on to power many, many highly successful Aston Martin road and racing cars.
I know that I speak for Don, Bernard and myself when I say that not only now, but even at the time, we knew we were lucky to get the opportunity to work with so many great people, especially so early in our careers, such as John Piper, Adrian Reynard and many, many more on the entire team.
Editor’s note:
The Trust and DesignJudges.com wish to thank Anthony Musci for this piece. Words and photos strictly copyright and with the kind permission of the author. Reproduction without permission forbidden.
Footnotes:
(1) For the full story on the Ford-developed V12, see The Origins Of Aston Martin’s V12, first published in ASTON 21.
(2) Multimatic is an Ontario, Canada-based supplier of high-tech components, systems and services to the global automotive industry.
(3) In 1998, Andy Wallace drove a McLaren F1 to a maximum of 242.9mph