Shoot, if Ford told me to test a Lightning, especially one of the first of a new generation that no one knew anything about, I'd take it out and race everything that came within a 500 foot radius.

 

is that the exhaust in front of the rear wheel?
looks like something shiney sticking out there.
whats with the 3rd brake light?

 

Its not exhaust tips...its a set of nerf bars

The 3rd brake lights on any new f150 looks that way, its like the old school "clear" lenses...which are more white than anything.

 

That truck could very well have the 06 Lightning powetrain. It doesn't have to have the correct bumpers or ground effects being a prototype. I had a few prtototype Lincoln LS's with 5.0L's and 5 speed tremic tranys installed in 01 pre-production cars. Had a 4.0L s/c Jag engine in a pre-production 2002 T-bird for testing. Couldn't tell it had that engine in it from the outside. It will draw less attention with less camo on it.

Ford does and will use pre-production vehicles from earlier years, retrofit it with the early prototype 06 powertrain and do this to save development cost to the program. If this truck beat a Z06 and had the exhaust exiting before the rear, we can safely asume it had the 06 powertrain.

Back in 1989 Ford had an F150 sport truck program. We stuck a 460CID in a F150 4X2 with lowered suspension and a 5 speed manual. I was taking the truck to a management drive location for review, on the way a Trans AM 350 pulled next to me. I ripped him a new azz all the way down Mich. Ave.

We twisted enough driveshafts to realize that aluminum isn't the way to go at that time. Livernoise Engineering built the prototype. Ford scrapped the program a year later. To much liability. The data did help in the develpment of the first Gen Lightning.

Some of us Ford people do bend the rules at times. We were on a development trip in Frisco Colorado. Had to be in Lake Havasu, AZ to check in to our Condo's before 7:00PM. Got off to a late start. We drove down thru Durango,4 corners. Along the way we opened up our prototype LS's over 130mph on a long clear stretch of road. Since I'm no longer with Ford I can mention it now...lol

I also had to go get a 2002 prototype T-bird from the impound lot. One of the Tech's was seeing a hooker. She stole the T-bird while he was passed out and got caught by Allen Park police 4 days later. She had her Pimp and two other girls stuffed in that car......lol

You never know what's under the hood of an "M" plate!

 

That everybody is assuming if Ford has a top secret test mule cruising the highways they're gonna put all the bits and pieces on it that will make it scream 'LIGHTENING'! That would be the perfect camouflage, outfit it so it looks like a regular lowered F150. It would make sense, since they don't have to completely cover it up since the body-style is already public but they still don't want to clue people in to exactly what they're looking at. Not saying it was definitely a lightening, but I think it's a bit naive to assume that Ford will advertise the lightening test mule to the world 2 years in advance by outfitting it with body kid and front and rear bumper covers and then sending it out on public roads. I would say the chances of it being a lightening test mule are small because it raced another vehicle on public roads, not because it had chrome front and rear bumpers.

 

dude, do you not know how to spell your own truck??

it's LightNing

-Mike

 

Was that "Clean and Mean"? I have pictures of that truck somewhere. Headlights in the bumper, all smoothed out, sweet truck. I remember it .

 

Nobody said Lightning owners were the sharpest tools in the shed.

 

 

It doesn't really matter at this point considering the Lightning program has been discontinued indefinately...