(MotorTrend)Press the electrically triggered chrome door handle and the door pops open. The sculpted one-piece leather seats are as stiff as the suspension, and you slide onto them as into a Barcelona chair. A 21st-century "shaker" looms in your view, and the rest of the hood is long and upright...you're overlooking a similar expanse of sheetmetal as in a Chrysler 300. Hit the electronic ignition button on the headliner just aft of the header, and the 5.4-liter V-8 fires up with a rumble.
The clutch is a bit heavier than a Mustang GT's, but it releases smoothly and progressively. This big sedan is easy to drive-if you're into low-riders. It bounces along the smooth test road like a candy-colored 1964 Impala on the haunches of its hydraulics. It feels like one good bump could launch it into the air. You shift cleanly into second gear, but that's all she'll show today.
Interceptor. It's just another Ford concept car. A nice piece of eye candy designed to take your attention away from the real horror story playing out in Dearborn amid collapsing sales, massive losses, and a demoralized workforce. Don't you believe it: Even as you read this, Dearborn insiders are sweating the details on a secret plan to radically change the way FoMoCo develops new cars and trucks. And the Interceptor reveals a key part of that plan.
Two things make the Interceptor important: the way it looks and the way it drives. Especially the way it drives. Ignore the fact the Interceptor rolls on a cobbled-together Mustang platform with a nonexistent show-car suspension. It's the thinking behind the car that matters. And the thinking is this: Ford wants an all-new rear-drive sedan for North America by 2011 or 2012.
Not that long ago, rear drive was on life support at Ford. The company had axed the slow-selling Lincoln LS sedan and Ford Thunderbird, both built on the expensive DEW98 platform shared with the Jaguar S-Type, and announced the plants building the Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand, Marquis, and Ford Crown Victoria would be closed in 2010. Under this scenario (Motor Trend, August 2006), the Mustang would be the only rear-drive Ford car on sale in America by 2011.
Now, under new CEO Alan Mulally, Ford is rethinking rear drive for North America. Insiders say Mulally has looked at what GM has done to reinvent Cadillac, seen the buzz it's generated around new rear-drive cars like the Chevy Camaro, Pontiac G8, and the Chinese-market Buick Park Avenue (all based on the Australian-developed Zeta rear-drive architecture), and asked: "Why can't we do that?"
It's more than just an obvious question. It also addresses a major dilemma for two key Ford products, the Mustang and Ford Australia's Falcon. The Mustang has been a runaway hit for Ford, but by 2011 the platform will have been in production for seven years, and its live rear axle is no match for the sophisticated independent rearends under the newer Camaro and Dodge Challenger. Down in Australia, the Falcon, Ford's rear-drive rival to GM's Holden Commodore, is getting a major overhaul for 2008, but its platform dates back to 1998.
Neither platform has the volume (2006 sales totaled 160,000 Mustangs and 50,000 Falcons and variants) to justify an all-new replacement each. So Mulally has asked for a plan to bring Ford's rear-drive cars together onto a single, global vehicle architecture. That means Mustang and Falcon. And it also means potential replacements for the Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis, and Ford Crown Victoria. Which is where Interceptor comes in.
By 2010, the Panther platform that underpins the Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, and Town Car will be 31 years old. To put that in perspective, even the legendary Model T lasted only 19 years. The Panther cars are cheap to make and, despite their ancient chassis and ergonomics, sell in reasonable volumes-combined sales totaled almost 157,000 units in 2006. They make good money for Ford, but all three are hopelessly outdated cars with little appeal to private buyers. They survive on taxi, police, and livery vehicle fleet sales, and even that market is trending down: 2006 sales were 10 percent lower than 2005, for example.
Throwing replacements for the three Panther cars into the mix changes the economies of scale significantly. Even allowing for natural shrinkage in Mustang sales and fewer sales of the Panther trio's replacements (which would be more expensive and aimed at private buyers rather than low-margin government and fleets), you're still looking at a global rear-drive architecture with a potential volume of over 200,000 units a year.
As you read this, Ford staffers are racing to meet a July deadline set by Mulally. The global rear-drive architecture plan is just one part of a radical rethink of Ford's entire product development process. At stake is nothing less than Ford's survival as an automaker into the next decade: Having taken out an unprecedented $23.4 billion in loans to fund badly needed new models, Mulally and his team are literally betting the farm on this.
Interceptor. Ford North American design chief Peter Horbury's team actually never called the car by that name while working on it in Dearborn, where the computer model was done by Swede Andreas Nilsson, and California, where the model was turned into a full-size clay under the watchful eye of Freeman Thomas, the man behind such icon cars as the VW Beetle, Audi TT, and Chrysler 300C. "Galaxie was the name we used in the studio when we were working on this," says Horbury. Check those taillights. Yup, '66 Galaxie.
The Interceptor isn't a retro car, but it clearly draws on design themes that for the British-born Horbury defined the great American sedan at its very best. "A lot of cars have lines that swoop upward and backward," says Horbury with a sweep of a hand. "We did it the other way around here. On Woodward Avenue in August [in the Dream Cruise] you see these fabulous '50s and '60s American cars, and they all have that graceful line that flows down toward the rear, rather like a yacht sailing by."
Look closely at the Interceptor and you'll see that, although there's a slight wedge in the beltline, the shoulderline falls gently away toward the tail.
There's a lot of subtle, almost subliminal design in the Interceptor. The front end is anything but subtle, however, clearly referencing the massive Super Chief pickup concept Horbury unveiled at the 2006 Detroit show. "It's a statement to say this is the Super Chief of cars," says Horbury.
He insists the way the Interceptor looks "isn't a million miles away from what's possible." Those showcar wheels would come down to real-world 18- or 20-inch items, and the roofline-currently the same height as a Mustang's-would be raised to ensure adequate headroom for all passengers.
Big sedans will never be the huge-selling heartland cars they were in the 1950s and 1960s; that territory today belongs to midsize, four- and six-cylinder front-drivers like the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Chevy Malibu, and Ford Fusion. And George W. Bush's call for CAFE to hit 35 mpg by 2017 threatens to marginalize them even further (although, as European automakers have proved, it's possible to get 30 mpg or more out of a big car right now if you stick a high-torque diesel V-6 or V-8 under the hood).
But if the reactions to cars like the Chrysler 300C, Pontiac G8, and Chinese-market Buick Park Avenue are any indication, plenty of Americans still like the idea of a roomy, stylish, and affordable rear-drive sedan. These cars recall the quintessential American automotive experience, an experience lost when American cars downsized and went front drive in the 1980s, leaving personal-use pickup trucks to take up the slack.
Ford, the company that put America on wheels, the company that gave us the Model T, the Mustang, and the F-150, shouldn't walk away from its heritage. Build the Interceptor, Alan. Call it the Galaxie. Build an upscale Mercury version, and a Lincoln flagship, too. Find a way to make them fuel-efficient; make them hybrids or diesels if you have to. But build them.
Other features new to the range include plastic moulding that surrounds the taillights, matched with the same color as the roof, plus the double exhaust tailpipes integrated into the rear bumper and the stretched glass sunroof. Optional extras include ski-racks, and a new roof mounted storage bin. 
