Ford Racing And The R Cars

Editor Sawyer was at a Ford press conference recently. While there he quizzed Jost Capito, director of Ford Team RS, and the leader of the organization within Ford’s Product Development group that combines the Special Vehicle Engineering and Ford Racing units. Editor Sawyer was particularly well-armed for the exchange, as he saw the first draft of the piece below, written in mid-2008, at which time it was shown to certain folks at Ford. Editor Sawyer later confirmed that several executives saw that first draft, as they admitted such in a press gathering last year.

Below I’ve updated the original white paper covering Ford Racing and Ford high-performance road cars to reflect Ford’s current corporate structure and product development process, expanding the argument with more detailed examples.

Simply put, the current mess must be wiped clean, and a new system instituted that is global, presents a unified message, yet incorporates the finest nuggets of Ford’s racing and high-performance heritage. For the sake of argument, I think Ford Racing should produce Ford R cars, which builds on the three Mustang Cobra R cars of the Nineties, and also links to the muscle car past of the Sixties. The same badging will work just as effectively in Europe, Australia and elsewhere. The heritage of US, European and Australian Ford performance can be incorporated through powertrain nomenclature.

I expect a few highly vocal members of the SVTOA, SHO Registry and other owner organizations to take exception and send more than a few nastygrams. For you vocal owners, bear in mind that I joined SVT at the close of the 1993 model year (first year), worked with them through the 2000 model year, and saw much of my work used and reused for the remaining years of SVT. With Mullaly having crushed the many fiefdoms within Ford and brought a measure of coherence to product development—his job is not done—there is a rare opportunity to bring rationality to the development and marketing of Ford high-performance and race cars, a rationality that will help ensure a steady flow of products to be prized, driven hard, and collected. To reach that level of coherence and stability, a few minor deities in the Ford Performance Pantheon are gonna have to die.

This piece runs long, for a reason. Based on experience, I know more than one marketing manager in Dearborn who would want to project his over-inflated ego by inventing new nomenclature, and pointing to it to support his next promotion. The goal here is to close off most perceived avenues for such careerist self-promotion, and present a complete argument. Much as you might want to scream, “Oh, Jeez, enough already,” there’s reason for the depth and detail.

The Current Mess

None of the following Ford performance model designations has enough depth to carry the freight with race cars, homologation specials or true high-performance cars. Some of these can be recycled to serve on cars with somewhat enhanced performance. Some of the following must die to bring clarity to the message.

• ST is not strong enough for high-performance. Sport Touring? Super Turismo? ST as a model designation was launched when a manager in Europe stole much of the drivetrain engineering of the late Nineties SVT Contour (and a good bit of the marketing materials) to create the Mondeo ST200 on the cheap. Not exactly a great achievement. ST is at best valid for warmed-over Ford of Europe products comparable to the US-market Bullitt Mustang. ST might make a nice naming convention for cars like the current Taurus SHO, and the upcoming Fiesta with EcoBoost engine. Except for one thing: say it out loud, guys. Fiesta ST. Focus ST. It’s wimpy. Don’t hang the pride of your company on such a puny term, created by people who later nearly killed Ford Motor Company. When you create a nomenclature, say it out loud, in various dialects, to see if it works.
• Cosworth’s brand image with Ford road cars peaked in Europe in the Eighties and early Nineties, with Sierra Cosworth and subsequently Escort Cosworth homologation rally cars built on cobbled together platforms. With floor pans cut to pieces and rewelded to accept all-wheel drive, these cars had little or nothing to do with the real Sierra and Escort platforms. In fact, the Escort Cosworth was an evolution of the Sierra Cossie. As a company, Cosworth has been traded around for more than a decade, though they appear to be stabilizing, once again playing the role of customer engine supplier to lesser teams in Formula One. However, is there any meaning left in this brand when associated with Ford if there is not a Ford team in Grand Prix racing? Even if Cosworth helps create rally motors and the like, the name should only appear on cam covers. This is a cult name to be exploited in Europe, and it does hold some potential for the three global sedan platforms (Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo).
• RS brings conflict with GM in the US market, and Audi has effectively developed RS in an alpha-numeric system for global sales of high-performance variants. RS would work as well as R, but some of this comes down to the lawyers, doesn’t it? I could flip a coin and pick R or RS. But it should be one or the other. R brings a clean slate, and it sounds strong when you say it out loud. Focus RS only sounds good with a low-end Cockney accent. It sounds weak in an American accent. Think it through, guys.
• Special Vehicle Team (SVT) was raped and destroyed by a group of executives who hated it, and doesn’t really exist anymore; certainly not in the sense it had in its zenith 10 years ago. For the sake of clarity, SVT must disappear as a designation. For the narrative, SVT is absorbed into a new entity, Ford Racing and Ford R. With former SVT engineer Andy Slankard at Ford Racing, there’s truth to the storyline.
• Also, SVT was explored as a global brand, and rejected in the mid-Nineties when the various fiefdoms within Ford fought against it.
• FPV is like Australia: lost at the bottom of the world. Time to integrate.
• FART, Ford Advanced Racing Technology is not a good acronym. Why this was ever allowed to exist, I don’t know. It’s horrendous.

Ford R cars will be the center of gravity for both Ford high-performance road cars and Ford race cars. All other detritus like ST, RS, Cosworth and FPV can be used on lesser models, or preferably dropped. SVT must be absorbed into Ford Racing as the ghost in the machine. Considering how many Ford SVT dealers hated the name—I was architect of SVT annual dealer meetings for many years, and I heard plenty of dealers argue that “Cobra” should be the brand name—this shouldn’t be a problem.

Own The Space

Some might object to R because the letter is used by others. But it has not been effectively used by them, whereas Ford could step in and own the image very easily. The territory is open.

First example? Honda.

• Honda has used Type-R to little effect, and is too timid and incompetent to make proper use of the name in the US market.
• The current Civic Si is in most ways a US-market equivalent to the Civic Type-R (with comparable peaky horsepower), but Honda believed Si had more brand image in the US.
• Honda back home in Tochigi is too wishy-washy to create a proper global sub-brand, even if Type-R was and is understood by the young males who would accept the brand in the US.
• Honda should have moved to a global performance image when the US-engineered Si was introduced. But then again, they never had the brains to evolve the Acura NSX and resolve its multiple marketing and performance problems, did they? Honda could have evolved the NSX into a rival of Porsche and Ferrari, but instead they let the car languish, growing increasingly frumpy. Honda never moved to either turbos or a V8/V10 in the height of the performance market of the past 15 years. Honda flubbed it, then brought out the interesting but equally ill-conceived S2000.
• Now Honda is further cluttering the US market with Mugen. Honda is repeating all the mistakes Ford has made. Instead of boldly stating what Honda stands for, they are playing around, seeing if Mugen will work. And if Mugen fails, they can kill it and feel smug about their decision not to risk Type-R. They may ultimately sacrifice Mugen after it has helped establish a new pricing plateau, then step in with Type-R to extend further. Remember, fortune favors the bold.

Next, Volkswagen.

• VW uses R in an alpha-numeric scheme with Golfs (e.g., R32) and on the Scirocco, but the cars are not well known in the US, and have made little headway in Europe.
• With Audi just above VW, there’s limited room for VW to produce a Germanic and therefore expensive high-performance car without crowding deeply into Audi territory at a price point few Americans will accept.
• VW is an irrelevancy in the US car market. Thus, its performance derivatives are even more irrelevant. If their Tennessee venture works out and VW volumes grow, they might be in a better position to use R. Better that Ford claims the ground now.

Volvo?

• Volvo R made little sense for what is the automotive equivalent of Birkenstock shoes. Who goes to Volvo for a performance car?
• Volvo is safety, reliability, sensible packaging, a bit of utility tossed in, and hopefully under Horbury a return to sensible design. Volvo is a great haus frau.
• Volvo has stopped making R cars. They never sold particularly well, even if the resulting cars had merit. Nice effort, but it didn’t work in the market.
• Volvo has debased R by turning it into a bundle of cosmetic accessories.

Jaguar?

• XFR, XJR. So what?
• In addition, R is part of the main model designation and not a separate term.
• Jaguars sell in small numbers, and XKRs sell in even smaller numbers.
• Jaguar bungled this sub-brand. Unless Tata is willing to drop millions to take Jaguar back to Le Mans and start winning again, who cares? It’s a trim level.
• Jaguar would be better advised developing mainstream products that cut more deeply into Mercedes and BMW sales volumes, and keep their XKR and XFR as boutique adjuncts that polish the image.

Ford R Marketing Imagery And Narrative

To repeat, for the sake of our argument, Ford R of Ford Racing.

Under this plan, Ford R cars are delivered to market through Ford Racing and Ford dealers who have paid for the right to sell Ford Racing products. No more Ford Racing Technology, please. Henceforth, Ford Racing.

Though the cars will be engineered partially within the context of mainstream engineering—something Ford was NOT capable of doing when I worked at Ford SVT a dozen years ago—to the public there will be Ford Racing and Ford R for engineering, racing, design and marketing of Ford R cars for both road and track. All marketing efforts will be built around Ford R to reinforce this singular global image of Ford Racing and Ford high-performance.

Imagery projected to the public is simple, clean and global: Ford R cars are produced in collaboration between the product planners and racing managers of Ford Racing (the ninjas, who will be described below) and the vehicle-line engineers of the Ford Motor Company. Because Ford engineers are capable and engaged, delivering excellent cars and trucks for customers around the world, at any time a ford engineer might be called upon to serve in the development of a Ford R car. Example? For the Ford Focus R, the vehicle-line body engineers might be tasked to manage development of specialty body panels for a British Touring Car Championship homologation Focus R.

This portion of the Ford R narrative has basis in reality: Dan Demitrioff of Ford Powertrain developed his “magic cams” that gave the SVT Contour both 30 more horsepower and a nearly equal jump in torque without making the engine peaky. Dan was mainstream, but a smart thinker, and his contribution carried the program past go/no-go. (However, to ensure against mainstream-engineered fiascoes like the 1999 Mustang Cobra, the R ninjas will have access to engineering resource and a proper development budget per car.)

Here marketing narrative and product planning meet. Ford Racing will provide direction and product planning, coordinating the efforts of Ford vehicle-line engineers as well as the specialty engineering firms that are inevitably involved in the development of homologation and dedicated road-going high-performance cars. This small group of engineers, marketers and planners will be the “ninjas” of Ford Racing.

The “ninjas” are an evolution of the structure used for SVT, adapting to the better-integrated product development approach under One Ford. The ninjas are the component of the narrative that allows SVT to become the ghost in the machine. For those people who bristle at any term that isn’t served up hot from a deep fryer, think of the “ninjas” simply as Ford Racing engineering managers, planners and marketers.

Ford Racing’s ninjas are an adjunct to Derrick Kuzak, ensuring that no R car goes off-target, as did the original 1993-95 SVT Lightning, which was developed without any marketing concept behind it, shoved into production and foisted upon the embryonic SVT. The ninjas must ensure that such a vehicle is completely thought-out, as was the highly successful second-generation Lightning of 1999-2002.

With the number of Ford SVT alumni now heading vehicles lines and major programs, there should NOT be the passive-aggressive and territorial resistance SVT faced. I would hope Mullaly and Kuzak have beaten that out of the system. Examples of vehicle-line managers or ranking engineers who once worked within SVT: Steve Pintar (Ford Fiesta), Kerry Baldori (Volvo, then Fusion and Raptor), Andy Slankard (Ford Racing), Dave Dempster (Advanced Product Creation). Again, SVT as the ghost in the machine.

Marketing will not only highlight the design, engineering, and performance of the R cars, but also the innate goodness of the Ford engineering on which they are based, a premise taken from the successful Ford SVT program of the 1990s. In the wake of One Ford, that imagery is reinforced to a greater extent because mainstream vehicle-line engineers will be tapped to step up and help develop these cars on an as-needed basis.

To repeat, the message to the general public will be that engineers at Ford are enthusiasts who truly loves automobiles, and the R cars are the ultimate evolution of Ford road cars that are innately good.

Though Ford Racing may rely on a wide array of engineering and fabrication suppliers, Ford vehicle-line engineers, Ford Racing “ninjas,” and the R cars will be the primary imagery presented to the public, along with their design, which is covered below.

Presentation of the R cars alone is not adequate. Buyers and collectors want to identify with the people who created the cars. That’s part of the enduring appeal with Baby Boomers of Carroll Shelby, who made his name more than four decades ago. This attachment to names and people transcends generations. The promotion of personalities cannot move to the level of cult of personality, a narrative some SVT marketing managers tried to insert into that program. But the people behind each R car remain an important component of the R narrative and the marketing message needs to include them.

Clear linkage must be made between road and race cars. Examples:

• Fiesta R rally car for WRC will be based on Fiesta R “homologation” road car.
• The many Mustang R variants (single-make, Nationwide, Grand Am, etc.) will be based in some way, shape, or form on the Mustang R road cars.

Ford Racing Product Development Standards And Benchmarks

What qualifies as an R car? What is the line of demarcation between a profane marketing exercise like a Bullitt Mustang and a Mustang R?

Mainstream Mustangs need special editions to keep sales up. This is usually focused on wheels, special paint, interior gimmickry, perhaps an engine stolen from a high-performance vehicle (e.g., the Harley trucks used a version of the SVT Lightning engine, running a different pulley to lower output, immediately making them “special,” more so than all the badges, stickers and paint would do on their own).

The most likely R car candidates are the three primary One Ford global sedans:

• Fiesta (WRC)
• Focus
• Mondeo (replacing Fusion in the NA market in the next product cycle)

Add to that the North American performance icons:

• F-150 (Lightning, Raptor)
• Mustang (Cobra, GT500, SVT, etc)

Plus, whatever the crazy Aussies want to hot rod. Also, there may be specialty coupes based on Fiesta, Focus or Mondeo components that provide extension of the R brand. Think about the Yamaha-engined Puma of the Nineties for reference. A Ford Ka would only work if made a global product, and it would sell far better in Europe than in the US. However, Ka has been dubbed too niche and too small for global sale (meaning US sale), so let’s not waste time on it.

A Fiesta R is a “homologation” car for WRC with a turbo 1.6 and all-wheel drive. This is the all-out batch-built low-volume car to make a link between rally and road.

Focus R or Mondeo R might be the car linked to British Touring Car or to a series here in the US or perhaps Australia.

How and why the cars are developed is part of the narrative. High-performance derivatives are rarely a major profit center because the engineering investment is high and sales numbers are low.

The main marketing goal of Ford R cars is to cast a bright halo around the mainstream products, showcasing the innate goodness of all Ford engineering. This is made easier because mainstream vehicle-line engineers working in the One Ford system are tapped to lead development of systems and components on each R car.

Please reference the Ford Racing “ninjas” mentioned above.

Therefore:

• Major investment made in suspension development/tuning, braking componentry, and powertrain.
• Depending on potential MSRP and also homologation considerations, investment in body panels, interior differentiation, special bodywork and interior badging.
• Thanks to engineering advancements since the zenith of SVT 10 years ago, unique fenders can be cost-effective.
• Cars developed for homologation and specifically for racing will have dramatically different engineering and cost parameters, measured individually to suit needs of the race series.
• Road-going Ford R cars are required only to break even. They cannot be a drag on vehicle-line or Company profits.
• Ford R cars cannot be thrifted in a risky manner that can stain the entire enterprise (e.g., the 1999 mainstream-engineered Mustang Cobra V8, which had a disastrous engine power deficiency, which is why the Mustang Cobra engineering was returned to SVT proper).
• True “homologation” cars can be exempted from the break-even stricture, but will be reviewed for value of exposure gained through the chosen race series. Value of the cars to the overall enterprise will be measured.

Additionally, and as a primary nod to the lucrative North American market, there are two types of R cars: black letter and red letter.

• Red letter R cars are the true “homologation” cars and the most radical of high-performance cars. These cars are heroes to the fan boys of various car magazines. They are all-out, with just enough civility to make them tolerable.
• Black letter R cars are equivalents to the Mustang Cobras of the Nineties: cars you can live with most days, but still high-performance variants.  Exploration of black letter opportunities in Europe is worthwhile, but this two-step is primarily aimed at North America, where a Mustang R black letter could sell in volumes of 5,000-6,000 and give a broader range of enthusiasts access to R.
• The red letter Mustang would be more expensive, and very highly prized by collectors. These cars will have exceptional specialized engineering.
• Black letter example number two would be the current FWD Focus RS. This is not a rally-inspired car, but instead a classic European “hot hatch.”

At this point, it’s clear to point out that the current Taurus SHO is NOT a red letter R car. This is a sport-touring sedan for a gentleman. It is too big, too heavy, and not outrageous enough to merit a red letter. With better thinking from ninjas, SHO MIGHT have worked as a black letter R car, with SHO only applied to the cam covers. Dredging up the SHO name and placing it on the fender muddied the waters. The original SHO was an intriguing vehicle, with a fine engine, but the over-stressed Mazda gearbox was prone to explosive moments. The second-generation SHO had an over-priced, under-developed Yamaha V8 that delivered no substantial performance gain–it has worked better as a Volvo V8, punched out to provide usable torque. And I know, because we built a few SVT SHO V8 prototypes, and they were dogs, utter and complete dogs that were shown to a small number of SVT dealers and quickly scrapped. Inclusion of the current SHO in the lexicon of R cars is a tricky point on the line of demarcation. No doubt some SHO Club members will send nastygrams for these comments, but the second-gen cars were disastrous, and measured within the Ford high-performance universe the first-gen car is a minor cult success.

R Badging, Heritage Badging

All road and race cars engineered, designed, and produced under the banner of Ford Racing will be known as R cars. Every high-performance road and race car engineered and produced by Ford will have a bold letter “R” integrated into the model badging. The model badging front, rear, and side for any vehicle will incorporate the highly graphic letter “R.” The issue of regional tastes and heritage is readily integrated into Ford R cars. The color of the letter and the mix of heritage names will build the secret handshake of the R fraternity over the years.

Lesser “performance” cars can be designated in whatever manner the regional market calls for. But these will NOT in any way equal the supreme performance of R cars, or conflict with them in the market or in the Ford narrative.

Three markets have unique heritage and needs:

• Europe (road racing and rally heritage, the ancient past of Formula One);
• North America (muscle cars, road racing, Indy car, Baja, drag racing); and,
• Australia (muscle cars and touring car).

Particularly in the North American market, Ford has a rich and complex high-performance heritage, something not faced by the likes of VW, Audi, Mercedes, or even BMW, and certainly not faced by the Asian manufacturers. This brings with it obligations that past Ford marketing managers did not understand or did not have the political capital to confront. A need exists to incorporate that heritage into a new, cleaner, and more sensible framework.

Under the umbrella of R, Ford heritage can be captured and employed through designation of the engine. A Mustang R might have an engine badged Cobra Jet, Cobra, Boss, Talladega, or Drag Pack, to give a few examples. This is most important in the US/NA market. However, similar variations can be applied in Australia and Europe.

The R cars will ONLY incorporate the heritage nomenclature that truly has meaning. R cars will not become a clearinghouse for every pathetic trim level that was ever foisted upon the public by some miscreant marketing guy. R ninjas will pick only the components that truly have depth of meaning, and whose meaning can be extended through incorporation in an R car.

Marketing-driven designations that have cropped up in recent years (e.g., Bullitt, California Special, Harley) can be left to mainstream exploitation. These names do NOT have valid high-performance credentials and are far closer to the stripes-and-stickers brand of marketing loved by the lightweights of the marketing profession. There can be no crossover between nonsense special editions and the serious high-performance road and race cars of Ford R, no matter the color of the letter.

Ford performance nomenclature of the glorious past can be incorporated in both series-produced and batch-built versions of R road cars and R race cars. The heritage can be fully exploited across multiple three- to four-year cycles of product development (e.g. Mustang R with Cobra Jet engine, Boss, Drag Pack, Cobra, Lightning V8s, Talladega V8, etc.).

Example: the red letter Mustang R car for the Nationwide Series, perhaps built with an engine badged “Talladega.” The more livable version of the Mustang R car range will have a black R badge and perhaps a Cobra Jet engine. See above for further detail.

Performance products unique to North America will be the Mustang R cars and F-150 R. The “black letter” Mustang R cars will be refreshed every few years with a new powertrain. For example, the powertrain might first be a Cobra Jet engine with natural aspiration. In the next development phase of the R cadence, the engine might have a supercharged V8 or a massaged twin turbo EcoBoost V6 that has the name “Boss” on the cam covers.

An F-150R might have a Lightning engine, denoting the roadgoing performance variant. Or, it might have a Raptor suspension system called out, for an off-roading vehicle. Evolutions of those two names will carry the F-150R for decades. You’re either going to have a road-going truck, or an off-roader. Other derivatives, like the Harley truck that stole the Lightning engine, can be handled as mainstream marketing ventures so long as they do not conflict with R imagery.

What of the global R products? Fiesta, Focus and Mondeo? Clearly, Europe can exploit rally designations for the black letter cars, with the R letter reserved for the all-out and most likely all-wheel drive versions that are linked to a racing series. If there is legitimate engineering development tie to Cosworth or another such firm, that firm’s name can be incorporated into the cam covers. Or an engine can be christened with the name of a great rally victory. (Sad to say that WRC is now a castrated version of its former self. Acropolis, Safari, these are gone. A sport needs great names and great fields of battle.)

Every Ford R car produced under the banner of Ford Racing can be fitted with cam covers and/or upper intake that wear the following badging:

• Ford Racing in bold, clear type;
• A blue oval; and,
• A black, red or green letter R: Black letter for pure road cars, red letter for race cars and homologation cars that are street-legal but much more radical, and maybe even a green letter for specialty high-performance cars developed with alt fuels like CNG, or ethanol.

The color of the letter and the heritage name associated with the powertrain become part of the secret handshake for people who own these cars. The guy who shows up with the red letter car at an event gets a special salute from others in the R fraternity, but everyone in the fraternity owns a car with special engineering and design, and each has that link to Ford Racing. Over the years, discussion of which engine you have adds to the value and lore of the R cars. Example: “You gotta red letter car.” And the reply, “Yup, Talladega motor.” In Europe, this need not be so lacking in subtlety. The red letter Fiesta will be recognized as the WRC car. The next section will also address the visual cues that would make the red letter Fiesta stand out.

Ford Racing Design

Design must be a component of the Ford R narrative.

• Design of Ford R cars will reside with Freeman Thomas and his Advanced Design Studios.
• A flexible but cohesive Ford R vocabulary of design will be developed.
• Ford Advanced Design Studio’s marketing imagery will be made a part of the Ford R narrative, adding to the aura of exclusivity.
• To the public, any designer working on Ford R cars will be presented as a member of the Ford Advanced Design Studio, whether permanent or on an R car rotation.
• The R design process will be fully integrated into the marketing materials and marketing message.
• The origins of Ford R design add to the cachet of these specialized vehicles.

Ford Racing Dealer Network

Ford R cars will be sold through a distinct subset of the Ford dealer body worldwide.

Ford SVT dealers in the US will be given first opportunity to buy into the program.

Dealers get a one-time chance to opt-in to the program. After that, R is closed to additional dealers. The best number would be perhaps 400-600 dealers in North America. Numbers for Europe can be determined readily.

Limiting dealer numbers is dictated by the need to limit sales volumes to make the cars special, while also giving the participating dealers enough “units” to make the program a worthwhile business venture. This lesson was learned with SVT, but a marketing manager threw it out the window to placate all dealers with the launch of the SVT Focus. It was one of the killer blows applied to the head of SVT. Not every Ford dealer knows how to handle such cars.

Dealers will pay an annual fee to participate in the Ford R program. The collective dealer fee will be matched by Ford Marketing to serve as the annual PR, marketing, and strategic planning budget for the Ford R cars. This is a direct carry-over of SVT.

Please note that engineering development costs are funded solely by the Ford Motor Company.

Dealer funds and matching Ford Marketing funds are devoted entirely to services that benefit the dealers and promote sales and reputation of R cars.

Why does this approach rate consideration? Because most Ford dealers WON’T make the necessary effort to use Ford R and Ford Racing to build the image of their dealership. SVT proved that only a small percentage of Ford dealers are true enthusiasts who are willing to make the considerable effort to bring success for Ford R. Maybe a big firm like Galpin can make it work, but many other large dealers simply don’t care about this specialized bit of business. Better to have a small or mid-size dealer who cares, and who builds a business around performance.

Conclusion

Ford has adopted many of these line items, but is still working out the nomenclature. As Editor Sawyer discovered, SVT, FPV and ST apparently may remain for regional performance vehicles. Global models will get a new global branding. This is a significant mistake, perpetuating the current mess, and making it difficult to engage in a global dialogue with customers around a common set of principles and ideas.

Further, promoting the global reach as well as the regional focus of Ford Racing will enhance Ford’s image by bringing regional vehicles into the line of sight of a global market. In much the same was as Nissan’s Skyline GT-R enticed generations of potential buyers before they could buy it, promoting the extent of the R program’s reach will entice enthusiasts everywhere and further enhance Ford’s global reputation.

To paraphrase, “Ford R: there can be only one.”

Tagged as: Alan Mullaly, Derrick Kuzak, Ford Motor Company, Ford R cars, Ford Racing, Honda Civic Si, Honda Mugen, Honda Type-R, Jaguar XFR, Jaguar XKR, Ninjas, Volvo R cars