Planetary Performance
Ford unites its performance brands and promises 12 new vehicles
By Steve Turner
Photos courtesy of Ford Motor Company
Ford just announced that it is bringing all of its performance and racing entities— Ford SVT, Team RS, and Ford Racing—under the Ford Performance umbrella. Director, Global Ford Performance, Dave Pericak, who most recently served as the Chief Engineer for the Mustang, leads this new group.
As part of the announcement, the company promises 12 new global performance vehicles by 2020—including the hotly anticipated Focus RS.
“Ford remains committed to innovation through performance,†Raj Nair, Ford group vice president, Global Product Development, said. “Our new global Ford Performance team ties together racing, performance vehicles and parts. It will allow us to more quickly introduce products and accessories that meet the needs of customers around the world on-road and on the track.â€
That means the lust-worthy Focus RS will finally fly around corners in the United States and other lands outside of Europe.
“To earn the RS badge, the vehicle has to be a no-compromise driver’s car that can deliver exceptional performance on the track when required while providing excellent every day driving,†Raj said.
Driving this push for performance is the success of Ford’s existing performance line-up, including the Fiesta ST, Focus ST, Shelby GT350, and F-150 Raptor. Ford Performance vehicles have shown sales increases of 70 percent in the United States and 14 percent in Europe since 2009.
That these cars are selling well is certainly good news for performance enthusiasts across the globe. Better news is that Ford plans to leverage the integration of is racing and production performance teams to bring vehicles and parts to market more swiftly. Some of this innovation will come from the company’s technical center that we showed to you earlier this year.
“Ford still races for the same reasons Henry Ford did in 1901—to prove out our products and technologies against the very best in the world,†Raj said. “The Ford Performance team will continue to pursue performance innovation, ensuring we can deliver even more coveted performance cars, utilities and trucks to customers around the world.â€
For U.S.-based performance enthusiasts it will be sad if the SVT name fades into the history books, but this announcement clearly shows that Ford is committed to a global push on all fronts, including performance.
On a vehicle based standpoint, I am certain we will see a great offering of performance vehicles worldwide, however it is disappointing to see such a storied marque as SVT eliminated after 21 years of brand development.
its not going away. its just part of a larger group. svt has the raptor and gt350. it it the same situation for the st, which was a combo of rs and svt
It’s certainly just names and word wrangling but the last section in the article is very much like a eulogy: