Jon Hagan's 1980 Ford Courier Pickup Packs Mustang SVO Power
Project cars often turn into never-ending projects that spend more time in the garage than driving, so it's only natural that a finished, running project catches our eye. We were at the Holley Intergalactic Ford Festival in Bowling Green, Kentucky, last fall and spotted this unusual beast, and now we're taking a closer look. This Courier pickup has zero connection to the Ford Couriers of the 1950s, but the Mazda-sourced mini-truck is technically a Ford, and it now features the heart of a true-blue Detroit-sourced SVO 2.3L four.
Jon Hagan, a 30-year-old construction worker from Owensboro, Kentucky, still owns his first car, a Fox Body Mustang SVO. He's been a lifelong fan of the platform, collecting piles of parts over the decades. Earlier this year, he stumbled across this 1980 Courier pickup. "I've always loved them and their story, but they're hard to find for a reasonable price," said Jon. He found this one for $1,800, so he jumped on it with no real plan.
The Ford Courier pickups are rebadged Mazda B-series pickups, and some rare models from 1977-82 feature 2.3-liter Ford engines — virtually the only Ford component in the truck. He went to work building a custom header and used an old intake for a Weber carburetor; however, the engine was smoking, and rather than rebuilding the rare original 2.3-liter engine, he looked in his barn and found a spare turbocharged SVO 2.3 covered in 10 years of dust and dirt. "I thought hell, I might as well throw that SVO in it," said Jon. "So, I cleaned her up and threw her in. " He was even able to reuse the original engine mounts. He performed a cheap rebuild on the bottom end, ported and polished the cylinder head, and put it back together, getting the truck running in less than five months before driving it to Holley Ford Fest, where we found it.
