Built at the Ford Advanced Vehicles facility in England P/1028 was the first road-going car delivered to North America. On arrival it was used briefly as a test and evaluation car at Ford’s test track and then sent to the Ford Styling Studio for a photo session. Immediately after this P/1028 became a promotional/public relations car for Ford North America.

The first stop on the promotional tour was the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring followed by numerous other car shows and exhibits. The car was returned to Ford’s test track where famed road-tester Tom McCahill of Mechanics Illustrated magazine put P/1028 through its paces. After 6 months of touring the USA P/1028 was sent to Canada for more public relations duty with Comstock Racing who promoted it at numerous events.

After the Canada tour the car was assigned to Ford Executive Fran Hernandez but not before being sent to Kar Kraft for a repaint in dark blue. In 1967 the car was sold to its first retail owner, David Tallaksen who himself was an established racer at Sebring. The car was again sold in 1969 and several times thereafter.

With the bones of a competition car P1048 required a bit of softening for road use. Most racing features were retained but the addition of air conditioning, padded dashboard, leather upholstery, luggage boxes, softer suspension and brake pads, street-tuned exhaust, and heated windscreen made it suitable for road driving. P/1028 has a 335 horsepower Ford 289 V8 and 5-speed ZF transmission.