Misplaced by history, the Ford Bearcat—a proposed mid-engine GT for the road—is another intriguing what-if in the Ford Total Performance story.

We don’t really know why Ford’s Bearcat concept drew so little attention in the U.S. automotive media back in 1967. Maybe it simply got lost among the sheer multitude of amazing vehicles that abounded in the Total Performance era at Ford, from the GT40 Le Mans racers to the Shelby Cobras and Mustangs. The mid-engine GT attracted more interest among the press on the opposite side of the Atlantic than it did here in the States. In Great Britain, the venerable Autocar magazine, founded in 1895, gushed over the Bearcat.

In profile, the Bearcat had a passing resemblance to the 1962 Lola Mk6 GT, a partial forebear of the original Ford GT, but the similarity ended there. Developed from a series of renderings by Ford stylist Albert T. McNea, the exterior design featured a bird-of-prey headlamp treatment at the front and an unmistakable Mustang theme at the rear, including a production Mustang rear bumper.

According to a Belgian magazine, the entire rear body section was designed to lift up for access to the engine and transaxle, just as with the Ford GT racers, while the detachable roof section could be stowed in the forward compartment for open-air motoring. However, it appears from the available photographs that the fiberglass body shell of the lone prototype, essentially a mockup, did not actually incorporate these features.

The 104-inch wheelbase chassis was intended to accommodate a 289 cubic-inch V8 and a ZF five-speed transxle, but no drivetrain was ever installed, reportedly. That suggests how far the Bearcat project progressed down the Dearborn development path: Not very far, it would seem. At the time, Ford already had a surplus of road-worthy, mid-engine GTs in its product pipeline, including the Ford GT Mk III and the Mustang-based Mach 2 (more on the Mach 2 here) and surely it didn’t need another. The Bearcat is one more fascinating what-if.