Ford’s New Project Uses Polarizing Tech to Reimagine Iconic Classics Like Never Before

If you’re not already familiar with Ford’s Heritage Vault archives, do yourself a favor and study up. It’s a treasure trove of material, and it’s worth a look.

The brand’s photographic collection comprises some 350,000 negatives stored in a special temperature-controlled unit. The documents date back to the mid-1950s, depicting everything from styling clays and seating bucks, to drawings and various other parts of the design process.

Ford

However, this means that many of these inclusions are preserved in black and white. As a result, younger Ford fans (including yours truly) have never experienced them any other way. Well, that is until now.

Breathing new life into old ideas

As part of a new project, Ford is using AI to reimagine a selection of its historical vehicles with vibrant makeovers and modern colorways.

Ford

I’m not talking about just any cars, either. For the first batch of renders, Ford dug into the archives to pull out some truly wild Mustang concepts from around the time the pony car hit the market.

Along with a two-door shooting brake-like wagon, this also includes a would-be four-door, a fastback and even the slippery four-cylinder Mustang I. Some functioning prototypes, others mere static mockups, they all promised something different for the Blue Oval’s enduring icon.

Ford

Moreover, Ford made sure to pick notable eye-catching hues like Lime Yellow Metallic, Race Red, Grabber Blue Metallic and Orange Fury Metallic Tri-coat. The brand hasn’t offered some hues in quite some time, but the two lattermost colors recently make a return.

Ford’s concepts live on today

To that end, even though Ford didn’t wind up turning these concepts into production Mustangs, they’re nevertheless ideas that continue to remain relevant (beyond their AI-induced refresh).

Ford

Just take the shooting brake, for instance. Designer Robert Cumberford initially dreamed up the project, and an Italian coachbuilder named Intermeccanica created a lone example, but it’s a unicorn that’s inspired countless similar conversions among other enthusiasts.

Moreover, the possibility of a four-door Mustang persists even today. The concept obviously didn’t make it past the clay modeling stages back in the 1960s, yet rumors persist that the Blue Oval might turn its pony car into a sedan.

In fact, in some ways, you could even say that the Mustang I lives on in spirit through some of Ford’s more recent efforts.

Ford

Like the concept, the Mustang EcoBoost touts a four-cylinder engine under the hood (though it’s in-line rather than a V4). Similarly, the Mustang GTD’s front-mid-engine configuration is as close as the pony car has gotten to the concept’s mid-engine layout.

More to come?

Seeing as some automakers are leaning on AI learning to create in-cabin smart assistants, and others are now flexing generative abilities to spin up photos and videos for their launch and landing pages, it seems even the car industry isn’t safe from the chokehold that the tech has on the world.

Ford

However, Ford’s project could be an innocent enough use case. In addition to showing the world some far-out Mustang concepts in a whole new light, it’s also putting them on display before a different audience. Sure, they’re old concepts, but they can still test consumer appeal.

Whether it’s some kind of roundabout way of gauging interest in color or body style, only time will tell. Given the depth of Ford’s photographic collection, we can certainly expect to see more vehicles pulled from the archives for a fresh new look and some more time in the spotlight.

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