Jim,
Judging by comments I’ve received at car shows here in UK and forums such as corral (Mustang forum) in the States where pics were posted, the Ace, in particular, would probably have gone down well both sides of the pond. Like you say, it wasn’t to be, and the few cars that were produced were seriously flawed. Even as late as 1999 Autocar said “we have not driven a current car with worse steering than the Ace” and then “the ride quality was too jittery, harsh and crashy”. I’m no expert, but just looking underneath it was obvious the steering and suspension geometries were up the creek. And it didn’t take much working out to conclude the springs were coil bound with the suspension still way off the bump stops. I’ve since sorted the problems on “ACE 94T”, but it begs the question, why were they produced with such basic faults?
Max