1963 Ford Allegro

The Allegro — the first of the second-generation X-Cars, fashioned in late 1962 — was based upon the earlier DeLaRossa Avventura design and built on a Falcon unibody.

Originally painted a delicate metallic gold, it established design elements that would heavily influence Ford styling throughout the Sixties: An isolated, centrally-mounted grille with satellite headlights, a long frontal aspect, and a short-coupled fastback roof line. The Allegro’s rear fender treatment mimicked the 1961-1963 Thunderbird design and anticipated the styling of the production British Ford Cortina later in the decade. Moreover, the Allegro"s fastback styling established the basic configuration for the later production Mustang fastback, and clearly traced its rear quarter panel treatment to a 1957 Ford Styling Studio exercise during the original Falcon’s development effort. Prominently featured in Styling, a beautiful book on automotive design published by Ford in 1963, the Allegro was described as a "...practical dream car, developed jointly by stylists and engineers." In Styling, Ford went on to further describe the Allegro as:

"Symbolizing sleekness, motion and, as its name indicates, brisk and lively performance, the Allegro is distinguished by a long hood, compact passenger compartment and a "fastback" roof line with grille waste gates in the fender area."

The Allegro presented a Cobra-esque front end design, and presaged the later production Mustang fastback roof. The small, vestigal fin picked up elements of the ‘61-‘63 Thunderbirds, also.

Though the proportions on the front clip were exaggerated, the fastback roof had clear influence on the first-generation, 1965 Mustang fastback. There were two Allegros built: a red-painted fiberglas mule that appeared in a 1964 Mustang promotional film, and this fully-functional car.

1961 Avventura, Avanti, Allegro

From late 1961 to mid-1962, Ford designers experimented with a wide range of themes for a sporty coupe based on the platform of the new Falcon compact. Each design was given an internal name, but one fastback design actually had at least three names, starting with Avventura before moving on to Avanti and finally Allegro. As the sketch shows, the fastback design was originally intended to be a hatchback with rear-facing second row seat. Although it was never produced, a variation of the fastback profile was eventually adopted as the third body-style for Mustang.

The transition from sketch to physical design model saw the Avventura losing the hatch, which was replaced with a trunk, while the rear seat was now forward-facing. The study was originally known as Avanti, but the name was changed to Allegro because Studebaker had introduced the Avanti coupe around the same time.

Avventura, Avanti, Allegro. 1961 год.

Еще на рубеже 1961-1962 годов дизайнеры Ford вовсю экспериментировали с разными вариантами спортивного купе на базе нового тогда поколения Ford Falcon. Каждый вариант получал свое условное название, но среди множества дизайн-проектов был один, который получил сразу три имени - изначально названный Avventura, концепт был переименован в Avanti, а затем - в Allegro. Судя по эскизу, автомобиль задумывался как трехдверный хэтчбек с развернутым против движения задним рядом сидений. Такое экзотическое решение, разумеется, потребители бы не поняли, однако многие считают, что формы кузова именно этого концепта впоследствии воплотились в фастбэк-версии Mustang.

Если под именем Avventura концепт существовал только на бумаге, то под именем Avanti он уже был воплощен в металле. От развернутого заднего дивана на этом этапе уже отказались. Практически сразу после своего рождения Avanti был переименован в Allegro, поскольку приблизительно в это же время Studebaker выпустил купе с таким же названием.