Again within the ’90s, earlier than the reign of the Ford Raptor previously decade, there was the SVT Lightning. The go-fast ninth and tenth generations of the Ford F-150 have been in style amongst fans, and that is all due to the Blue Oval’s Particular Car Staff (SVT).
With a supercharged 5.4-liter V8 that makes 360 horsepower (268 kilowatts) and 325 pound-feet (440 Newton-meters) of torque in its newest iteration, the SVT Lightning was exceptionally quick on the time.
However do you know that the Lightning nearly had an SUV brother primarily based on the first-generation Ford Expedition known as the Thunder?
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Identical to what the GMC Storm is to the Syclone, the Thunder was alleged to be the extra sensible model of the Lightning that did not come to fruition. Why? A Donut Media interview (video embedded above) with John Coletti, SVT’s Chief Engineer from 1994 to 2004 sheds gentle on the story of the stillborn idea.
The SVT Thunder was virtually a Lightning with three rows of seating. Coletti and his staff have constructed a prototype in direction of the tip of 2000 by shoehorning the identical supercharged V8 and the Lightning platform into the Expedition.
The consequence was expectedly nice. A 0-60 mph dash of simply 5.6 seconds, which was almost 4 seconds faster than the traditional Expedition. Whereas quick SUVs aren’t a stunning thought as of late with the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat round, the SVT Thunder would have been a precursor to what these thrilling SUVs embody immediately.
Sadly, timing wasn’t on SVT’s arms again then. The primary-generation Expedition solely had two years left in its lifespan in 2000 (the second-generation mannequin was launched in 2002), so introducing a particular model of the nameplate would have been a waste.
To today, just one prototype was constructed by Coletti and his staff at SVT. Such an anticlimactic ending, we reckon, however it’s what it’s.
