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Our coverage of SHO topics today ends with two videos of a SHO Taurus at Watkins Glen. From July 2008.
Kudos to the driver of the SHO. When I was driving the Glen with the local BMW club back in the early eighties, they hated the fact that a mere Ford Mustang was passing most of their cars so easily (what's a 115 HP 1.8 liter SOHC engine to do?). So much so that it was suggested I consider racing elsewhere. To hell with them & their elitist attitude - I went back anyway.
This makes me wish I'd taken my own SHO to the Glen when I had my chance to visit there again in 1993... instead I took my Mustang GT. It did well... but after seeing these videos I wish I'd taken the SHO. It's charge up into the upper RPM range would have been great fun down the back straight (as was my original Mustang SVO)... but course Saturday night it would have needed completely new front rotors, calipers, pads, and bearings. But then so did the GT (despite the big SVO 5-lug 4-wheel disc braking system).
Yes, SHO Tauri are alive and well... and are moving into the collectible realm. There are technical problems galore... but the *very* active SHO clubs across the country are a great resource.
Will Ford ever again create something as unique as the original SHO? Doubtful... an AWD Taurus/Volvo with a Lincoln engine (assuming it ever comes to be) might be a nice car but it won't introduce the same measure of uniqueness in the market that the original did.
Yamaha owns the rights to the SHO name for engines, while Ford owns the rights for cars. Yamaha is not sitting down - their new 1.8 liter SHO supercharged engine in the jet ski shown below accelerates faster from 0-30 than a Z06 Corvette. Like Ford's original SHO engine, this one is very much worthy of the name.
Follow the link in the title of this post above for more information.
But wait - there's more. This time the SHO engine is put into a Cobra kit car. It's not a real Cobra, so what the heck...? On the other hand, the engine is far more modern than any of the iron lumps originally offered. And it looks the part of a true exotic - the SHO engine is an engine which you would be proud to SHOw.
Follow the link in the title of this post for more images.
We've been posting nearly every SHO engine swap we've seen - but to date there hasn't been as clean and professional a swap as this one. The SHO engine looks like a factory option under the hood of this 1972 MBG. Follow the link in the title of this posting to the owner's site for full details.