Car and Driver, June 21st, 2006
Since the dawn of the new millennium, there have been more new vehicles for sale than customers eager to buy them. That's why we've seen steady escalation in rebates, cut-rate leases, and every manner of employee, relative, loyalty, and other trumped-up discount deals.
But I don't hear about giveaways for M5s, Charger SRT8s, E55 AMGs, or Maz- daspeed 6s. Such models attract buyers who are motivated by performance more than price. They bring some glamour to their parent models, attract customers to dealerships they might not otherwise visit, and generate sales that actually bring prof- its to car manufacturers and dealers alike.
For Car and Driver readers, such factory-tuned cars are some of the best choices on the market. They deliver substantially more performance than the standard mod- els from which they evolved. But because of their mass-produced roots, they aren't ridiculously expensive. Although such fac- tory hot rods can't match the outrageous of- ferings from the Lingenfelters, Hennesseys, and Rufs of the world, they do provide a level of refinement, reliability, and practicality the hard-core tuners can't provide.
That's why just about every manufacturer is working overtime to establish an in-house tuner brand or expand the one it already has. Success in this arena does not come overnight, however. Buyers of these cars are more knowledgeable and discrimi- nating than the drones who are only price- shopping transportation appliances.
The history of BMW's M cars reveals the road map to success in this motoring genre. BMW's M1 supercar put the M division on the map way back in 1979. That M1 cost too much to ever sell in volume or add much luster to the mainstream BMW chariots. But since the introduction of the M635CSi in 1984 , there hasn't been a millisecond when BMW didn't have at least one M3, M5, M6, M roadster, or M coupe in its showrooms. After 22 years of uninterrupted, excellent products, it's no wonder BMW's M label has enviable credibility and marketing momentum.
More than 20 years ago, you might be surprised to know, Ford also unleashed a factory hot rod. Called the Mustang SVO, it was a version of Ford's popular pony car that was thoroughly overhauled with modified bodywork, an extensively massaged suspension, and a special turbocharged four-cylinder engine that delivered V-8 power without V-8 mass.
SVO stood for Special Vehicle Opera- tions, then a small division within Ford run by Michael Kranefuss, the former di- rector of Ford Motorsports in Europe. SVO was also in charge of racing and high-performance parts, creating a cohesive effort to expand Ford's high-performance image.
Unfortunately, the Mustang SVO was no quicker than the cheaper, V-8±powered Mustang GT. Its lack of success encouraged Ford to switch its performance emphasis to more mainstream models such as the Mus- tang GT, Taurus SHO, Merkur XR4Ti, and Lincoln Mark VII LSC.
In the '90s, however, Ford got back to the in-house tuner game with an entity called SVT, which stood for Special Vehicle Team. In 1993 the F150 Lightning and the Mustang Cobra arrived. Both were mildly souped-up compared with their base vehicles and, like their Mustang SVO forebear, also had reworked suspensions designed to achieve a more refined combination of ride and handling.
These machines were sold through select dealers, and only about a sixth of Ford's outlets quali® ed. The car wore no special badging at ® rst, and SVT was in fact only the marketing unitÐthe engineering was performed by a group called Special Vehicle Engineering (SVE). Meanwhile, Ford's aftermarket parts were still labeled SVO and the competition department was called Ford Racing. The logic behind this splintering of Ford's high-performance efforts, in name and organization, always escaped me.
Nonetheless, SVT stood for the same kind of all-around performance that Krane- fuss had earlier brought to SVO. Much of the credit for this goes to John Plant, who managed the division. Plant, who had worked for both BMW and Fiat in Europe, valued re® nement and road feel as much as cornering grip and sheer speed.
The SVT Mustangs and the SVT Con- tour that appeared in the '90s de® nitely had merit beyond their abilities to spin their driven wheels. The engineering of the cars was overseen by the ¯ amboyant John Coletti, who ran SVE during Plant's tenure and took over SVT as well in 2001. Despite Coletti's well-deserved rep as a power- crazed hot rodder, he maintained SVT's emphasis on all-around performance.
In the last SVT Mustang Cobra, for ex- ample, Coletti added an independent rear suspension, helping the car's ancient Fox platform cope with the supercharged V-8's 390 horsepower. And the SVT Focus was similarly balanced and refined, probably to a fault for the Fast and the Furious set.
By 2003, SVT had the Mustang Cobra, the Focus, and the F-150 Lightning and was on a 10-year roll. Coletti's penchant for publicity made the most of this lineup, and SVT's future looked bright.
Then the Lightning went away with the appearance of the '04 F-series. The next year the Cobra disappeared when a redesigned Mustang arrived. Ditto the Focus, which fell behind the escalating power requirements in its class.
Then Coletti retired and Ford took the free-standing SVT group and folded it into its enormous mainstream product-development organization. And the next SVT product, the Shelby Cobra GT500, will de- emphasize its SVT origin and be offered at all of Ford's 4000-plus stores.
Associating the Cobra GT500 with Shelby has undoubtedly ignited a bright flame of publicity, but at the expense of the painstakingly built SVT brand. Meanwhile, enthusiast buyers for cars like the GT500 will be put off by mainstream salesmen, who won't know boost pressure from tire pressure and will be pestering them about how much of a monthly payment they can afford.
The current mantra in Detroit is to have products that are designed and built to satisfy the customer.º Once you get beyond trying to fathom what the previous strategy might have been, you can only be amazed that a company pursues this new goal by doing its best to kill a group that has been satisfying motivated customers for more than 10 years.
