1989 Ford Shogun - Jay Leno's Garage

you well in that episode of Jay Leno's Garage this is my 1989 Ford Festiva well it's actually a Shogun it started out as a Ford Festiva you know the funny thing is this is a car we did probably almost 10 years ago when I started this website it was about a three and a half minute video and I always Park it back there whenever we shoot a car in that room people go hey what's that gray thing in the back how about doing something on that so that's what we're doing now we'll do a bit more updated version I've had this car like 26 years now almost 27 years and what it is is it started life as a Ford Festiva and it has has a Taurus SHO engine in the backseat this car was the brainchild of two brilliant guys Chuck back and Rick Titus Chuck Beck is uh just one of those crazy engineers he built a motorcycle with amber genious pata engine in it and actually runs he was on the Ford gt40 racing team in the pits at Lamont Rick Titus of course he's the son of Jerry Titus famous racecar driver and he's the famous racecar driver himself he does a show called drivers talk on radio you can google that on the internet and see what it is they buy my show it's a fabulous show anyway they built seven of these and I have to remember back in 1989 there weren't a lot of fast cars Corvette was about the fastest thing out there certainly the most horsepower 350 the Viper had yet to come along so what they decided to do was go power-to-weight ratio they took the Taurus SHO which was a breakthrough car at the time and had this fabulous 3 liter Yamaha v6 engine it's just a great great motor and it's about 220 horse and they took it out of the front-wheel drive show kind of turned it around and put it in the rear of this car it I make it sound simple a lot more engineering in it than that but that's basically what it does retaining the 5-speed gearbox and everything the engine is completely stock but it's dropped about a thousand pounds in weight literally a thousand pounds of weight this thing weighs what 2,200 pounds someone has a 220 horse and since I live in a hilly area we put nitrous on it do you have a little boost to 300 occasionally and this thing is so much fun if you've ever seen or in all our five turbo it's like that but on steroids but way way faster just a really fun fun car to have and the interesting thing is I pulled my file out on this car the other day and this car was a huge deal when it came out here is the brochure let me show you that here's the original brochure this is what sold me on the car actually it's under 2,200 pounds always 20 190 pounds weight distribution 57% rear 43% front 0 to 60 and 5 seconds which is pretty quick back in the day here's all the specs right here in fact he was Chuck doing a burnout with the car he knew that would sell me the car Chuck is very sneaky I got this in the mail first well needles say it piqued my interest because the Ford Festiva was a front-wheel drive car winter wear the tires in the back well you get the idea then you can see a much a man who looks like my son but that's actually me 26 years ago on the cover of what is this turbo and high performance magazine there's our little installation right there with a nitrous J's ultimate pint-sized rocket since J has added 90 horse nitrous progressive jet you could set up to the car why is this about 90 horsepower so it takes it about 300 there's a whole article air I'm not sure if this magazine did exists anymore but he took the evident would speed reading course you can get through this right about now but there were tons of articles on this car look it even made the cover of Road & Track magazine what you that's February 1991 and they thought this car would really take off you know but they only old seven of them maybe because it didn't look like a fast car which is why I liked it it was such a sleeper but God it was in Auto week it was in here's another special edition Shogun another I mean there are tons of articles in here what is this one there was a Shogun a show registry but you know even put out their own shop manual chakras and Ric were really pretty good about doing follow-up and since there are only seven cars you know you can pretty much have the club meetings in a closet but all kinds of brochures was in the 10 best cars issue of Car and Driver magazine I mean this is really a fantastic car when it came out I think this car was about it said there were only 250 these cars built and they started a 42,000 dollars which was a lot of money back in the 1989 1990 I think I paid 35 for mine if I'm not mistaken this is where all the we even made exotic car quarterly look at that it's on the cover with the Lotus 4200 R whatever happened to that thing I have no idea let's pull this back in here before I drop the roll down and it's a car that's achieved kind of a cult status you know people who know really know and you know young kids stop me all the time if I need to have a tourist show my dad told me about those and you know sell the legend builds up to these things but it's got the Boyd wheels on it I mean it's exactly as I bought it back in the day and as I mentioned this engine is just bulletproof you know it really is it just revs in fact the engine was supposed to rub much higher 7,000 is now the redline fuel cuts off at 7300 but this engine actually revved to about eight grand maybe a little bit more but at the time Ford you know the the ancillary items you know the alternator the water pump they didn't think they could take that kind of rpm so they limited it to 7,000 rpm but it's a lot more horsepower to be gotten from these motors and it's one of the great I think it's certainly the greatest motor certainly the 1980s which is not a great time for innovative engines but this is certainly one of them and as you can see oh there's a nitrous bottle gives it extra 90 horsepower so when you need it and you can see it's a pretty neat installation and that's where it's at for the last 27 years all I've done is change the oil and yeah I swapped out a battery couple of batteries probably but other than that god it's just a great great motor you know because all you've done is increase the power-to-weight ratio instead of moving around 3,500 to 3,600 pounds it's moving around 2200 pounds so that's like adding you know hundred horsepower something and it's certainly a lot of fun to drive it's got air conditioning five speed box Park it anywhere still is very light you know it's the fun part is when I when I Drive this thing you pull up to a light this has happened to me twice good there you tires are in the back jerk ooh you know guys and gulfs and all kinds of GTI's things like that you know because they think it's a front-wheel drive car and I go oh no it's my kids car I don't know about it you know and then I nail it you blow their doors off it's wonderfully mature but that terrible fun too so that's basically if they that's how she works pretty straightforward in the interior you see this just fits right in here you put that back in there and lop these down and that holds it in place and takes care of all the heat and the noise got some super traps on there so that makes it sound pretty good but the guys did a great job building this car you know this is one of those love projects I'm sure they didn't make any money on him because they only sold seven of them which sort of surprised me I thought they'd sell a lot more interest in this car seems to have gone up a lot in the last few years because it's just well it's it's one of seven it's unique and it's proven I haven't heard of anybody I ran it a couple other owners and they've all loved them some about them secondhand a third-hand and nobody seems has any problems with them you know Chuck and Rick did a wonderful wonderful job I mean even you'd think these panels they made would somehow deteriorate or crack or fade know they used high-quality material and and she runs great but it's just a wonderful wonderful car as I said before when this came out it was 42,000 dollars in 1990 which would be I'd probably 60,000 now maybe 65,000 he says it would rather have a Porsche 911 or this most people probably go for the Porsche 911 I chose this just because it was faster than the Porsche 911 and it was just a lot of fun it was you know this would be the kind of car I think ken Block would have a great time just doing donuts in the middle of Main Street I mean I just enjoy this thing so so much it's really terrific I got some custom seats and boys had made Momo steering wheel I see custom dash pack video was 160-mile speedometer video tach then you had a coach from water temperature fuel gauge oil and and oil temperature as well look he even got a CD player looking to see poornam us a Springsteen what else have I got here okay that one okay didn't that was in the tape deck a little too long what it says unless too old okay yeah you don't really see cassettes anymore who does this one uh-uh I'll sign even heard of that one of those but those yeah okay just forget about those but as I said is plenty of legroom it's really a comfortable car visibility is excellent seats are comfortable oh this is really cool let me show you on this side and this is for your nitrous bottle right here this turns it on okay now that's this is the heater is a Coryell ëcause are on the bottle that heats the bottle turn on your night nitrous and everytime you want to go just press that it shoots a little shot in there you go this is a dimmer switch for your dash lights so gives you that extra anytime you need an extra 90 horsepower you hit that it gets a little pricey but hey what price horsepower really I look even have the original starting instructions from 1989 for the stupid for single deranged that was in here let me show you what's under the front hood with the engine used to be the gas tank is in there now you got a fuel cell as you see it's not exactly a show car under here to working everyday car I drove it in the rain use it to commute do whatever I had to do radiator here then you got your gas tank is up front that's where the engine used to be it's a fuel cell in there now but everything else remains the same master cylinder and all that once you wash a bottle I mean everything the car was intended to do with the time okay it's really just a neat little package in fact that's taken up next there next door rather I'll put it up in the rack I'll show it looks like underneath once again we've got the vehicle up on our Stella Coney lift here we're going to do this more and more because people like to see what's underneath the vehicle especially something that's got something that's homemade or you know done by an outside builder or something as you can see it's a pretty neat installation this subframe here they made special for the car four-wheel disc brakes but you know for a car that's thirty I mean every fitting under here is 27 years old I haven't done a thing in this car you know it's all remained pretty uh pretty bulletproof nothing leaks Chuck and Rick did a beautiful beautiful job I mean they really are engineers and builders that's what's great about it this has been as reliable as any you know factory car and in fact I would say even more so yeah say pretty straightforward this is your Taurus engine we really haven't changed anything all they did was really drop the powerplant in and turn it around and do a little bit of clever engineering regional gearbox clutch everything and it's simple enough to work on you can just take this engine right out of here I don't anticipate having to do that for at least another 20 years or so or at least for that time I'll probably dead be the other guys problem but anyway and our super trap mufflers these are just kind of motorcycle mufflers that are on there which is kind of cool see all the heat insulation around there none of that has buckled or anything from excessive heat it always runs right it 195 something like that it's just been a real terrific car and being so light brake pads last a long long time because every time you stomp on the brakes you're not stopping two tons of worth material you're stopping just about a ton so with four-wheel disc brakes it's not a problem in fact I'm still on the original pads on this thing now maybe I change them once I'm sorry yeah I think I did change them once but as you can see nothing to hit her ya know what this goes okay okay look at this now I have no idea okay now I'm gonna go crazy trying to string all right see you've done this for 27 years this has been no problem because I put this on the list to show you guys I'm gonna go crazy trying to trace this and see where it goes you notice I'm just kind of stuff it back up they're not gonna worry about it come on listen let's take it for a ride sure we can thank you but that just short wheelbase car and handles pretty good I'll be a little careful these tires I've had em here for quite a while I got to get some new rubber but we'll put our foot in a little bit you'll see how it goes you got to remember when this thing came out in 1989-1990 there wasn't much out there the most powerful car you could buy was probably least in America the Corvette 350 horsepower there's no Viper yet emissions are still strangling everything I remember when the Dodge Viper came out in 92 it had 400 horsepower and they said you'll never see this kind of horsepower again from a major manufacturer and of course that all turned out not to be true but the fun thing about this was it was just such a sleeper you know it just didn't look like anything I'm surprised they only built seven of these it's hard to believe there weren't more than seven people crazy about this car because when Chuck Beck first showed me this thing I just he came to my house with car number one the yellow one I just saw it again it's on YouTube it's been up for sale a few times and I went for Drive and I said I gotta have one of these sure you could have bought a Corvette or maybe even some kind of for sure for that kind of money but this was really the more money than brains Club huh I just love this thing it's got air conditioning plenty of legroom and nobody knows what it is and this engine is bulletproof you know I've had this thing now God 25 years and I've never done anything other than change the battery every maybe eight years and maybe what cost change the oil every year but that's that's all I've done to it and I've run scribe oh you got to change the nitrous bottle okay let me know a lot of people compare this to the Renault turbo r5 but this will blow the doors off the wrong oh my god yeah with the nitrous you're looking at well over 300 horsepower in about a twenty two hundred pound package you gotta be a little careful with this short wheelbase it can spin on you pretty quickly but that's alright gotta respect it this thing really is a lot of fun so if you guys you actually make a u-turn without having to do a three-pointer I mean the with pace is so short and it just keeps pulling and pulling and once you hit the nitrous nitrous bottle it really takes off come on I'll show you I'll get up on the freeway and I'll show you what I'm talking about got your joy and all fouled away ratio realize this thing weighs like a thousand pounds less the big Taurus that came out of jump back and Rick Titus a real car guys I mean they really knew what they were doing when they put this thing together in such an unusual car you know they look like some kind of super swooping sports car it would defeat the whole purpose you know a thing about this motor is I got the redline set for about 7000 but who actually going quite a bit more than that it's just that when the engine was developed what happens is fuel shuts off at 70 300 redline is closer to eight grand but the auxilary you know the alternator and the water among all the other stuff a Ford didn't feel those those things could handle a grand so they redline did it 7000 rpm with there's plenty more I mean this engine will just rev forever oh my god makes the best noise these tires are at least 15 years old you know what I've been doing silly stuff with the old tires you know you want to make sure you got fresh rubber on your car especially going to be doing any cornering at all because old tires are just like banana peels boy you know I think you remember our friend Paul Walker when they had that terrible accident that Porsche they were involved with had 10-year old tires and at that point they're hard as a rock and it's your responsibility as the owner to check your tires checking for cracks you know especially you got passengers in your car here and you're doing stuff on a racetrack or something always checking you know I check my tire pressure every time I take a car out I know that seems excessive but a couple of times I've been caught out you know find one tire whoa look at that it's down to you know 16 pounds 18 pounds and the tire might look fine so you always want to do that check your tire pressure in fact maybe I'll try and burn off some of the rubber Oh is a little bit later sure I kind of burn out this thing does eyes walking Ridley these old tires before I put the new ones on that's a big question is will it do a Burnout little tiny car like this doesn't seem like it you'll be able to do one but let's see what happens like the Hellcats get a little worried see you guys next week

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 2,097,597

Rating: 4.9283051 out of 5

Keywords: jay lenos garage, nbc jay leno, watch jay lenos garage video, watch jay lenos garage full ep, jay lenos garage 1989 ford sho, jay leno ford shogun, chuck beck, nick titus, ford sho v6, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus, ford shogun, 1989, shogun

Id: 3XR9SoQU16c

Length: 21min 54sec (1314 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Ifuckinglovepancakes]

Looks like a Pulsar Gti-R from a parallel universe where US and Japanese car design switched places. Neat.

[u/Snaz5]

Reminds me of the french turbo hatches. Always loved those.

[u/ferio252]

Those exhaust tips look terrible but I absolutely love the name, supertrapps. I'd buy a set just for the name alone.

[u/emccon]

Sick