03-08-06: So the news all over town says SVT is dead. Well, perhaps it is so. There was no press conference with a presentation or a press release with bullet points. It is just going away. Be not sad, it is just a badge on a car.

While the many people who were a part of the Special Vehicle Team would argue with the last statement, let me illuminate you. At the end of the day Ford Motor Company is an organization with many tribes and armies within. In these days of survival mode they are re-crafting the company to do more with less. Where there is overlap or redundancies like development teams and marketing groups dedicated to niche products there has to be a sound business case to keep it in place. With SVT, there really isn’t one.

Blasphemy you say? Granted, there are many die-hard Ford and SVT fans out there today pining away on forums about the death of Ford, speed, horsepower, and life as we know it. The sun will no longer rise. I can sympathize with the sentiment. But lets get something straight. That the Special Vehicle Team as a tribe within the company is being disbanded does not equate to the end of performance cars as we know it. Performance cars can be produced with or without a separate branding enterprise. And lets be honest, that is all SVT ever was. A marketing arm.

If you are reading this John C. I am not aiming to down-play the mission in which you so gallantly executed. In the big picture, Ford built the Mustang GT, Mach 1, Boss 302, Boss 429 and other famous muscle cars without an SVT. In the early 1980’s the Mustang GT itself was a barnstormer that was developed without an SVT. Further, the 32-valve 4.6 that first found a home in a Mustang under the SVT badge was not actually developed by SVT, but was transplanted from a Lincoln. The reality is that an outside and separate group is what was needed during that era.

My point? There are still engineers at Ford. There are still gear-heads and people dedicated to performance. The fact is, performance sells. To me, it actually makes some structural and institutional sense to integrate the performance development aspect of your brand into the mainstream of the engineering pool. Why separate it? I think that there are some potential benefits in the long run by integrating all levels of model development and marketing into one chasm.

So how you ask is Ford going to have special performance cars now? Well, indeed with less staff there is less capacity. There are famous names out there to help. Roush? Shelby? Yep. What is less known is that the majority of the development and engineering for almost every SVT vehicle that has ever been built was done lock, stock and barrel by none other than Roush Performance. That’s right, it was outsourced. Recent news that Shelby Automobiles has “done the deal” to collaborate on as many as four more cars with Ford should tell you something about where things are headed.

Again, Ford High Performance is not dead. It will just have a new badge.

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