Macon Marauder
11-26-2003, 09:54 AM
Not Marauder-related, but interesting nonetheless. Both BON and autoextremist.com are reporting the return of Shelby to Ford. Here's what autoextremist had to say:
After investing ten+ years in establishing "SVT" as their in-house high-performance brand, Ford is cancelling the entire program. Ford will kill the tasty SVT Focus next year and suspend production of other Special Vehicle Team vehicles for the 2005 model year. Ford will then debut new high-performance products in the 2006 model year - led by an all-new Mustang Cobra and F-150 Lightning - which will most likely carry an official Carroll Shelby designation. This dovetails with the announcement made before the SEMA Show that Ford would be bringing back Carroll Shelby - the man (but more specifically the name) - to give luster to their performance products of the future. Lost in the fog of nostalgia fueled by the Ford GT program, apparently, Ford believes trudging out Shelby will immediately lend the kind of cachet to their high-performance entries that they didn't have before. The only thing we see the octogenarian adding to, however, is his bank book - but that would certainly be consistent with Shelby's "M.O." of the past 45 years. The folks down in Dearborn seem to have forgotten Rule No. 1 when dealing with Carroll Shelby (no big surprise, since half of them weren't even born the last time Shelby was hanging around the Glass House) - and that is the simple fact that with Ol' Shel it's always about the money, it always has been about the money, and it always will be about the money.
After investing ten+ years in establishing "SVT" as their in-house high-performance brand, Ford is cancelling the entire program. Ford will kill the tasty SVT Focus next year and suspend production of other Special Vehicle Team vehicles for the 2005 model year. Ford will then debut new high-performance products in the 2006 model year - led by an all-new Mustang Cobra and F-150 Lightning - which will most likely carry an official Carroll Shelby designation. This dovetails with the announcement made before the SEMA Show that Ford would be bringing back Carroll Shelby - the man (but more specifically the name) - to give luster to their performance products of the future. Lost in the fog of nostalgia fueled by the Ford GT program, apparently, Ford believes trudging out Shelby will immediately lend the kind of cachet to their high-performance entries that they didn't have before. The only thing we see the octogenarian adding to, however, is his bank book - but that would certainly be consistent with Shelby's "M.O." of the past 45 years. The folks down in Dearborn seem to have forgotten Rule No. 1 when dealing with Carroll Shelby (no big surprise, since half of them weren't even born the last time Shelby was hanging around the Glass House) - and that is the simple fact that with Ol' Shel it's always about the money, it always has been about the money, and it always will be about the money.