[Shotimes] Plastic Hood Poll

[Scott G Littlefield]

Don,
Do you know if any non-Plus cars were produced after Plus production began?



Donald Mallinson wrote:

> Ron,
>
> My point is that the evidence we have, and we have a lot,
> including everything posted in the latest poll, is that the
> plastic hood was on every true plus SHO, and it got on a FEW
> non-plus SHO's.  As you pointed out Ron, several of the
> other known SHO Plus unique features are not mentioned in
> that infamous salesman's flyer or the showroom brochure, so
> the fact that it is not mentioned is of no importance.  The
> picture doesn't show the hood so we don't know if it was on
> the car in the picture or not.
>
> Those of us that have been to every convention, and have
> paid attention to the 91's (since I was looking for a Mocha
> Plus since about 1992) have noticed that by far, MOST
> non-plus production in 1991 got the steel hood.
>
> The number of 90's that got the hood is miniscule and I
> attribute that to a pre-production "test" of some sort?  or
> maybe they had the plastic hoods ready and some got used as
> inventory of the SHO specific steel hoods dropped to zero
> one time...all speculation, but the hard evidence is that
> the plastic hood was used for the Plus cars.  The new car
> lots of the time had the plastic hood on ONLY the plus cars
> in the dealerships I went to.  The plastic hoods on non-plus
> cars from the factory are rare.
>
> As to why the hood was made, we just don't know.  And I am
> not sure if we will ever find the person responsible, but I
> will continue to look.  Speculation is all we have since my
> best guess (for racing hologation) did not pan out, we can
> guess that maybe they planned a change for the entire run,
> but the extra cost and low production quantity, maybe,
> forced Ford to put the hood on as a plus feature only.  We
> know that the plastic companion spoiler had production
> problems, and that is why quite a few true Plus SHO's got
> the hood, but not the spoiler.
>
> About the brochure print date; Even though it says March,
> chances are the photo's and copy were finalized long before
> that.  This is a common problem with brochures.  They are
> usually put together when the very first pre-production
> prototypes are built.  Final option packages, colors etc are
> almost never in their final stages at this point, even
> today, but it was really bad back in the 60's when cars
> changed a lot every year.  These brochures have to be on the
> dealers shelves before the cars hit the showrooms, that
> means they are written, photographed and sent to the
> printers several months before Job 1 on the production line.
>
> I am just trying to prevent yet another rumor from starting
> about these cars (the Plus models).  WE know pretty much
> what happened with them and when.
>
> BTW, the PLUS designation is official on the order forms,
> and it was NOT unique to the SHO.  only the 212A package
> number at the time was unique to the SHO.  There were Plus
> packges for the regular Taurus the same year.
>
> Don Mallinson
> SHO Club
>
> Ron Porter wrote:
> > I see the point that Scott was making, which I believe is basically that the
> > hood was not made purely as something that was to go on the Plus cars, but
> > it ended up being used on the Plus cars (in addition to many others, many
> > well before the Plus models were produced). When some '90s came with the
> > hood, those were cars that were built almost a year before the Plus cars
> > rolled off the line (well, 9-10 months, anyway).
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