Ford Establishes Global Engineering Team For Future Performance Vehicles

[outback_ute]

Luke as said, the car was race-prepped but had not even had a shake-down before it arrived at the track. Contrast that to the BMW & Evo's that have been racing for years. I did see mention it was held up in Customs, so no doubt the team had planned to have the car earlier. Throughout practice and the race it was plagued by misfire/fuel issues - teething issues. Even the speed it had with was a couple of seconds off the pace should improve once the team has a chance to 'learn' it and dial it in to best advantage (as the other cars have been).

[FPV]

http://blogs.automobilemag.com/66240...les/index.html

Now, Capito will align America’s SVT, Europe’s Team RS, and Australia’s FPV while establishing performance vehicles that can be sold on multiple continents. With products like the new Fiesta and Focus set to bow soon, we’re eager to see what tuned variants Ford will come up with.

In Europe you use the ST and RS monikers for performance vehicles, while it’s SVT here in America. What badge will these new performance vehicles wear?

We’re not finished with the nomenclature yet. I think we have two different things. We have regional performance vehicles and we have global performance vehicles. We are fully agreed on global performance vehicles, you need one nomenclature. We see that the RS already has got quite the following in the U.S., so there would be nothing wrong in calling it RS globally. Each car should have only one nomenclature [globally], but I don’t see RS in Europe going away, and I don’t see SVT in the U.S. going away.

I guess this interview clarifies Ford's position on performance vehicles for the future. What it appears will be as people said, FPV would continue with its range of "regional" vehicles but would also be able to have input and sell the global developed performance vehicles such as a new Focus RS. There will probably be greater technology share between the groups, but even in 2014 with the new falcon, I still see FPV badging there cars with the GT and F6 badges.