Yahoo Autos The Ford Festiva Shogun Is the Crazy Mid-Engined Hatch Ford Never Made
Unlike Renault with the R5 Turbo and Peugeot with the 205 T16, Ford never built a mid-engine rally hatch, instead giving the world the RS200. That didn't stop two builders from imagining what that car would have been like. The result is the Ford Shogun, a mid-engine Festiva with the V6 from the Taurus SHO.
Two engineers, Chuck Beck and Nick Titus, built just seven Shoguns, with Jay Leno being the most famous customer. In 1990, it cost about as much as a Porsche 911, but according to Leno, was faster. The 220-horsepower, Yamaha-built V6 only has 2200 lbs to push around, so it's much quicker than a Taurus SHO.
Leno sees the appeal in the Shogun's under-the-radar sleeper status, but apparently others didn't, despite its appearance bevy of magazine covers, including Road & Track. It's the textbook definition of a car guy's car: Looks like nothing to most, but the people who get it, get it.
