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The father of Ford’s Special Vehicle Team addresses the faithful in Charlotte
By Steve Turner
It’s rare that a rainy Saturday at a car show can turn into a special day, but that’s just what happened when we learned that the co-founder of Ford’s Special Vehicle Team would be speaking in the media center at Charlotte Motor Speedway. After all, without him, we would have missed out on a lot of great cars. Moreover, this site might never have come to life by its inspiration.
If you don’t follow the internal workings of Ford, you might not realize just how special it was that SVT was born in 1991. It was the creation of Robert Rewey, Ford's Vice President for Marketing and Sales, and Neil Ressler, Ford's Chief Technical Officer. They saw a need for high-performance halo vehicles, and they committed to putting together a group that would create them. The only stipulation was that the cars had to be good enough to sell themselves. There would be no advertising budget for SVT.
After a successful start with the 1993 Mustang Cobra and Cobra R, Neil Ressler selected John Colletti to become the chief engineer at SVT. John had led the team that developed the SN-95 Mustang, and was on the front line in thwarting the Probe from succeeding the Fox Mustang. John was a true and passionate enthusiast, that Neil described as “full of ideas, but impossible to manage.”
Neil simply gave John the edict to not embarrass him. That meant he wanted SVT to create great performance vehicles that he wouldn’t have trouble defending should Ford management question them. It was this pairing of Neil providing what John described as “air cover” and John’s drive to create the highest performing vehicles possible that brought us such beloved vehicles as the Cobras, Cobra Rs, Lightnings, Terminators, and the pair’s swan song, the impeccable Ford GT.
Having the chance to hear Mr. Ressler speak to a room full of enthusiasts was a true treat. We captured the event on video for those that couldn’t be there. Better yet, your Editor-in-Chief was the overeager kid at the front of the class asking questions, so we got to hear more than just the basic SVT story.
There was also a question and answer session that included Neil, as well as Ford Performance Group Enthusiast Communications, John Clor; Global Product Development System Chief Engineer, Art Hyde; and original Mustang designer Gale Halderman. We edited the Q&A down to just the SVT related stuff, so quit wasting time and click play on the video below. It’s definitely worth watching.
[video=youtube;14OOvhd-fcM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OOvhd-fcM[/video]
