It's Red, Fred · 1 September 05

Checked out the Ford Probe EV candidate last night and it looks like an almost perfect car for the job. Body is in good shape, no rust (southern car most of its life), and even the tires are decent.

Paint is bleached out a bit and nicked in a number of places, will need to get it re-painted at some point. Passenger compartment is a little dinged up, but nothing that can’t be cleaned up or patched.

The mice in the trunk aren’t going to be happy when I get rid of their wheel-well housing…

I like the look of the car, sleek, with a lower drag coefficient (0.30) than the old Mazda 626 (0.36). Although I’m sure it’s nothing near the Probe prototype they made in 1983:

Ford’s Probe IV is a state-of-the-art experimental vehicle which boasts a Cd of only 0.15—about the same as an F-15 jet airplane.

Or how about the 1985 Probe V with a Cd of 0.135! Here’s a little more history behind the Probe.

Barring the seller changing his mind, I should take delivery of the new EV by this weekend. Time to start clearing garage space, re-reading a few books and starting the painful task of trying to decide on batteries.

The real test lies in coming up with a good name for it. I just don’t like typing Ford Probe…it doesn’t roll off the fingers easily. It needs a clever name, something catchy, easy to type, that doesn’t remind you of alien abductions.