The 1968 Ford Techna is one of those concept cars that was acclaimed when first unveiled, but has since been relegated to the status of a Forgotten Ford.
Championed by Ford’s engineering vice-president Harold McDonald, the Techna was created to test new approaches to safety, packaging and body construction.
Ford’s PR folk boasted that the Techna was “a functional engineering experimental car of the future.”
Sitting on the running gear of a Ford Galaxie, the two-door hardtop coupe was fully operational.
Ford engineers regularly drove it around Dearborn, testing its experimental systems and gadgets in real-world conditions.
One of the Techna’s tricks that engineers liked to show off in parking lots was its power-operated parallel-hinged doors.
The hinged system moved the door out rather than swinging it in an arc.
The idea was to allow easy exit in tight parking spaces.
This was not a new idea.
Pontiac had shown a similar idea on one of its concept sports coupes a year earlier.
Another styling and engineering feature Ford pointed to was the absence of front pillars.
The roof was a stressed cantilever design, anchored to the rear pillar.
And, this was not new either.
It had been developed by Chrysler for its ill-fated Norseman show car in 1956.
That car was now at the bottom of the ocean off Nantucket, having been built by Ghia in Italy, then loaded on to the ocean liner Andrea Doria which sank off the US coast.
At the front of the car, the bumper bars, grille, bonnet and fenders were combined into a single unit.
Yes, you guessed it, this idea was also not new.
Remember the 1959 Triumph Herald?
To save having to lift the entire front end of car, just to top up the oil and coolant, the Techna had an access hatch in the bonnet
At the rear of the car was an energy-absorbing plastic rear bumper.
Pontiac would debut that idea on the front end of its Le Mans/GTO range in 1969.
Brake and the rear turn lights were housed in the rear window area.
Ford also played around with the driveline in order to create more interior space.
The driveline was off set almost six inches/153mm down and to the left, lowering and locating the transmission tunnel closer to the driver.
This freed up space and gave the middle front seat passengers more leg room.
Alternatively, Ford could have investigated front-wheel drive to achieve the same result, as GM did with the Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado.
The Techna was used by Ford’s Autolite division in a series of advertisements, and then the car faded from view.
Very few of its technical ideas were transferred to production cars, and the styling did not influence future Fords.
No one seems to know what happened to the Techna.
It was probably crushed, as was the fate of many concept cars back in the day when their use-by date had expired.
David Burrell is the editor of retroautos
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