FORD PERFORMANCE
Ford’s aftermarket performance division always has a major presence at SEMA, so it was no surprise to see them step up to this digital version of the famous event. During SEMA 360 week their feature vehicles were both ‘1400’ derivatives of the Mustang name plate. Earlier in 2020 the all-electric Ford Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 prototype drag car blasted through a quarter-mile in 8.27 seconds at 168 miles-per-hour and reached 1502 peak wheel horsepower during testing. That’s roughly equivalent to the combined output of more than three 2021 Mustang GT V8 engines. Following on the heels of the all-electric Cobra Jet, the Mustang Mach-E 1400, which was recently demonstrated at Goodwood, is projecting 1400 peak horsepower from its seven motors. Developed in parallel, both cars were built to demonstrate Ford’s technological capabilities and innovation skill set in EV technologies.
Dave Pericak, Director Ford Icons, said “We’ve been enjoying Mustangs for 56 years and if we want to do that for 56 more, we’re going to have to make sure that we are using the right technology. We’re looking at how we bring Mustangs into the future. The Mustang Mach-E is super important for Ford to demonstrate what we can do for electrification, but it is also extremely important for the Mustang brand because it’s our future.”
Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports was a panellist on the SEMA 360 ‘Racing Forum’ and reminded the audience that Ford is a motorsportsbased company, and Henry Ford was a racer as well as a successful industrialist. He said “Motorsport is as important today in addressing a lot of today’s challenges. It is very important for us to race on the track what we sell in the showroom; it’s relevant for our customers. The innovation and the technical learning that we can get from the world of motorsport; the fast pace, the highpressure, pushing everything to the very edge, that makes our road cars better. For the last three years we have been looking at where can we go racing that is full electric. The existing series today aren’t quite right for us, for what we are looking to get out of it. There are a lot of new series that are being proposed or existing series that are planning to switch to full electric and we will see that play out over the next two to three years. On the full electric front, because those series don’t exist for us yet, is why we built the Mach-E 1400 and the Cobra Jet 1400 so that we had an experimental test bed to learn, to innovate, to make us smarter as a motorsports team, as a total company and to tell the story to our customers.”
Proving that the virtual world is tied neither in time nor in place, two weeks after SEMA 360 Ford ran their own ‘Ford Auto Nights’ SEMA Show special webcast from Detroit, where they revealed custom versions of the F-150, Ranger XLT Tremor, Bronco Sport and a Bronco Badlands Sasquatch off-road concept.
“We’re looking at how we bring Mustangs into the future. The Mustang Mach-E is super important for Ford to demonstrate what we can do for electrification...”