Even in his seventies, Henry Ford continued to study new ideas, as shown in these patent filings for rear-engine cars.

For a “cut-and-try mechanic without any particular genius,” as one early associate described him, Henry Ford did pretty well for himself. Along with putting the nation on wheels, he had 161 U.S. patents assigned to his name. While he relied heavily on his key engineers, including Joe Galamb, Larry Sheldrick, and Gene Farkas, for their formal technical expertise, he supervised most every major development, especially those that caught his interest. In 1934, the patent filings in his name began to show a number of rear-engine prototype automobiles, and with remarkable variety.

On the 1940 prototype above, a small Ford of England four-cylinder engine is mounted backward behind the rear wheel centerline, mounted to a transaxle with a transverse leaf spring and swing-axle suspension. A jackshaft drives the generator and cooling fan, while the battery and fuel tank are mounted behind the driver’s seat. There doesn’t seem to be any way to get air to the radiator, and the basic construction suggests that this vehicle was mainly a packaging test of the rear-engine layout.

Above may be one of the most unusual Ford prototypes ever. Illustrated in a May 1935 patent filing (U.S. 2,065,065 granted in Dec. 1936), this vehicle features an L-head V8 mounted behind the rear axle centerline in a transverse configuration. The mechanically-controlled planetary transmission is mounted on the axle centerline, driven from the crankshaft by a large herringbone gear, while suspension is provided by (again) a transverse leaf spring, swing axles, and trailing arms. The patent filing asserts that the extreme rear engine location moves the vehicle’s center of gravity rearward into the cabin, reducing pitch oscillation to produce a smoother ride.

The giant drum next to the engine is actually the radiator, constructed in a barrel shape with coooling air passing through axially, assisted by a belt-driven fan. Reportedly, this setup required less copper than a conventional radiator, although the packaging problems would be formidable in any kind of conventional Ford product. In the Jan./Feb. 1971 issue of Special Interest Autos, noted historian Terry Boyce reported that this chassis design was fitted with a Ford Matford body and extensively road tested, but was “not succesful,” according to Ford engineer Sheldrick.

It’s interesting to note that aound this time, Ford Motor Co. had taken on the John Tjaarda-Briggs prototype, adapting it to become the Lincoln-Zephyr. However, its rear-mid engine design was soon converted to a conventional, front-engine, rear-drive layout, much to Tjaarda’s disappointment. It may have been Ford’s own internal experiments with rear engines that led the decision to stick to the tried and true for the production Lincoln.

It would be a tough call, but the vehicle above (U.S. patent 2,051,474, filed 1934, granted 1936) might argually be the most novel of all the rear-engine experiments. A V8 engine is mounted longtidunally in the mid-rear location, but here it drives the front wheels through a torque tube and Ford-style axle. The design also includes four-wheel steering with limited articulation at the rear. The illustrations here (lead image above and chassis diagram directly above) are closely based on the patent drawings, mainly cleaned up for the sake of clarity.

Just for fun, we asked several of the current artificial intelligence programs to create an image of what this car might look like in complete, finished form, using the patent drawing as its guide. One popular app produced an image that was a dead ringer for an early Volkswagen Beetle, which was entertaining. However, Grok AI created the more convincing image below. While it took some artistic liberties with the greenhouse and front end styling, at the rear there’s a passing resemblance to the ’38-’40 Ford. We can almost see it as a real Ford Motor Company product.