Side view of a 1993 Ford Probe GT on a road

32 Ford Probe GT This makeover for 1993 trades turbo terror for sixcylinder silk. BY KEVIN SMITH 0This time, we were in on the project earlier, Ford designer Mark Kelly told us. All along, we had thought the Ford-Mazda partnership that produced the Probe and MX6 frontdrive two plustwos had been an evenSteven deal from day one, so we wondered: had Ford just been tagging along when these cars rst appeared in 1988? Kelly and product development Chief Neil Ressler explained that the first time around, they were handed an existing Mazda platform, that of the 626 sedan. For their half of the joint sports coupe project, they could only restyle the skin and fiddle with chassis tuning. All the hard points had to remain fixed in space. Cowl height, suspension locations, wheelbase, trackthe key mechanicalarchitecture cards had already been dealt before Ford walked into the room. For the secondgeneration, 1993 models, however, Ford engi neers were able to spec out the new platform the way they wanted it. They started with a considerably bigger and more stable foot- print by stretching the wheelbase almost four inches and pushing out the track, front and rear, more than two inches. Dropping the cowl height a dramatic three inches and pulling the windshield base forward nearly four inches provided the canvas on which a lean, long, contemporary shape could be drawn.