I wonder what the legitimacy is of that photo...it's been circulating since 2000 or so...
This article was posted by a guy named Keith Deluca on this website
http://vintagethunderbirdclub.org/ a long, long time ago, I can't find the original thread, I have it saved on my computer, here's the goods and at the bottom was a pic of that strange black car:
This is from an ex-Ford executive.
The '98 bird was not canceled until may or june of 1997. We were all done with the
development of the car and even built the first wave of prototypes at Lorain Assembly
Plant.
Here's what we missed out on.
They dropped the 3.8L from the T-Bird completely. There were two 4.6L engine options
available for the car. The base one was a little more anemic than what the 96/97 car
was. It was a single exhaust, normal taillights and directionals (you'll understand in
a minute), pretty much the same 4.6L that was there is '97. But remember, this was the
base car.
The Sport car was this. The engine was a modified 4.6L engine. It had different cams,
different exhaust manifolds, a conical air cleaner and 80mm air meter. It was basically
the Mustang induction system and exhaust manifolds. But it had different cams and a TRUE
(yes I said true) dual exhaust. The engine made 230 HP (fudged higher by typical Ford
standards). It came with the 11" converter an aluminum shaft and 3.55 axles. It had H
rated tires and was speed limited to something like 120 MPH. The rear fascia on the car
had cut outs in the bumper for the chrome tipped dual exhaust pipes. The front fascia
had foglights (similar to the old S/C). The directional's on the rear were sequential
like the old Cougars of the 60's. It had the same spoiler that the 97's came with. It
was monochromatic paint scheme to the color of the car. Had 11.5" front rotors and
aluminum dual piston calipers.
The interior was similar to the 94/95 S/C. But it had a better cup holder than the '97's
had.
Unfortunatly, someone decided that they needed the 4.6L engines for trucks rather than
make T-Birds and it never seen production.
I think I can come up with a picture or two over the next few weeks. If I do, I'll post
it here.
So, thanks to some ^%$# bean counters, the best MN-12 was never produced.
I don't remember what the performance numbers were on the car, but it was slightly slower
than the auto GT's in 1998 (not that we ever raced them).
Here is a picture of what the 1998 Thunderbird would have looked like.