Ford Maya

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Ford Maya is a concept car designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign for Ford. It first appeared in 1984 at the Turin Motor Show and was made to test a 2-seat, targa-top sports car for the U.S. market. Ford planned to produce about 12,000 cars a year, so the Maya was built to be fully functional, not just a show car.

The Maya uses a rear-mid engine, rear-wheel-drive layout with a 3.0 L V6 engine and a 5-speed manual transmission. Initially, a mid-mounted 140 hp engine was used as a placeholder, but Ford intended to use a Yamaha-developed 3.0 L V6 with about 250 hp for production. The car’s design is a wedge shape with a drag coefficient of 0.28. Inside are twin leather bucket seats, luggage space behind the seats, and most controls on the steering wheel. Because it was made for the U.S. market, the front bumper is a soft, deformable plastic.

In 1985 Ford asked Italdesign to build a second Maya, the Maya II ES, which had smoother lines and a central air intake inspired by Ferrari models. Ford wanted it painted flaming red, but it returned to Italdesign in two shades of metal grey. That same year, a third prototype called the Maya II EM was finished in July 1985 to test the concept on real roads. The EM has a notchback rear end and a longitudinally mounted twin-turbo 3.0 L V6 engine producing about 300 hp.