NEWSFLASH!! John Coletti, SVT Head, "Retires"

Folks, this, IMO, is not good news! I had a feeling something was
brewing inside Ford/SVT, I would never have guessed this.

-----news clip----

By Eric Mayne

Phil Martens, Ford vice president of product creation, says SVT is what
it is today because of John Coletti.

Ford Motor Co.'s high-performance car guru, John Coletti, is retiring
after 32 years with the company, a departure that leaves the
automaker's Special Vehicle Team at a crossroads.

The charismatic Coletti, 55, will leave Ford this month as director of
SVT, which gave birth to popular vehicles such as the SVT Mustang Cobra
and F-150 Lightning.
---

NoOp Comment: Colletti "retires" at age 55, but Bob Lutz, GM's
performance guy, is almost 80. IMO, something is wrong with this
picture. How could you walk a way from a job like Colletti's at an age
of only 55? Even if he had tired of running SVT, you'd think he'd
still stay on in some capacity. I'm thinking John/SVT must have run
into some internal jealousy.

---
Regarded throughout the industry as a leading innovator of hot-rod
vehicles, Coletti helped SVT chalk up sales of more than 100,000
premium-priced, high-performance cars and trucks since 1992.

"John is an icon," said Phil Martens, Ford's group vice president of
product creation. "Inside and outside of the company, he is extremely
highly regarded. You have to step back and say, quite frankly, SVT is
what it is today because of John."

Coletti said his decision was a personal one. "I've been thinking about
this since March," he said. "This is the right time. It's an orderly
succession."
---

NoOp Comment: "Orderly succession" You mean like the SVT Focus being
canceled, the Lightning being put on hiatas, the Mustang Cobra delayed,
and now Coletti "retiring"?

---
Coletti is confident that SVT will thrive. "They have a cycle plan," he
said. "That organization is going to endure."
---

NoOp Comment: The way it's going the "cycle plan" may be changing SVT
into a "badge factory", meaning only creating SVT insignia for
production-line Fords.

---
At the moment, though, SVT is stuck in neutral. The end of the 2004
model year marked the beginning of a two-year hiatus for SVT-brand Ford
vehicles.

Production of the next-generation F-150 SVT Lightning pickup will be
postponed until after the debut in 2006 of the 2007 SVT Mustang Cobra.
And the 2004 model is the last for the SVT Focus, which garnered
acclaim for its spunk and handling.

Longtime fans of the SVT vehicles are concerned about the direction of
the line.

"Lightning owners are very disappointed," said Brian Shafranek, 42, of
Pittsburgh, who owns a 2003 SVT Mustang Cobra. "I would like to see the
brand expanded."

With SVT in for a prolonged pit stop, the competition is expanding
their high-performance offering.

The Street and Racing Technology, or SRT, division of DaimlerChrysler
AG's Chrysler Group is launching its eighth product in February with
the debut of the Chrysler 300 SRT-8.

And General Motors Corp. is rolling out a pair of Saturn vehicles under
its Red Line brand, while Cadillac and Chevrolet plan to market more
high-performance models.

While SVT engineers work on the next Mustang Cobra, Ford could miss out
on potential profits.

"A lot of us are making some reasonably good money because niche
products are selling," said Dan Knott, director of Chrysler's SRT
group.

Recent studies show that specialty vehicles, despite the considerable
investment required to bring them to market, boost the bottom line for
an automaker's mainstream products.

Rochester-based Foresight Research surveyed 40,000 households that
purchased new vehicles and found that certain niche vehicles can
burnish a brand's image. High-performance brands such as BMW's M line
and Mercedes-Benz's AMG division can inspire the purchase of a
mainstream vehicle or draw showroom traffic that could lead to a sale.

"We would love to see Ford continue emphasizing SVT because it has a
lot of positive effects," said Steven Bruyn, Foresight's chief
executive officer.

Martens said Ford plans to be back in the high-performance game
eventually.
---

NoOp Comment: "Eventually"??? Dumb dumb dumb! Here GM and Diamler
Chrysler... come and take the high-performance market we created and
owned for the last 10 years.

---
"We have a very clear view of what we want to do," he said. "And one or
two is not enough."
---

NoOp Comment: I'm hoping he means one or two high-performance products
and not the number of years Ford will be out of the high-performance
game.

---
The F-150 Lightning was postponed to allow engineers to focus on the
Mustang Cobra, which has an avid following among horsepower junkies.

"The demand for the Mustang is beyond our wildest dreams," Martens
said. "The expectation is that the Cobra will be delivered on time with
quality."

Ford will reveal more plans for SVT next spring at the New York auto
show.

"We absolutely have to be a leader ... in performance vehicles. It's
part of our DNA. But we have to do it in a broader range than just the
traditional SVT product programs," Martens said. "There's a broad
opportunity for four-wheel-drive, high-performance, (four-cylinder),
turbo-type of programs."
---

NoOp Comment: Okay, this sounds better. I agree. I could dig adding
some high-performance, AWD turbo cars to the stable. That is as long
as the Mustang Cobra and Lightning return/prosper. Hmmm... maybe
Colletti's departure has more to do with rumors Colletti not wanting to
get into anything other than traditional, V-8-powered, RWD vehicles.

---
Hau Thai Tang -- Ford's newly appointed director of advanced product
creation, replacing Chris Theodore, who is retiring -- has assumed
responsibility for SVT.
---

NoOp Comment: Interesting. The kid is good... maybe he'll take the
SVT stick and run with it. Let's hope!

---
Ford also has disbanded its Ford Performance Group, which was launched
in 2002 to develop performance vehicles for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury
vehicles.

Ford plans to adopt engineering lessons it learned from the quick
development of the Ford GT, a 550-horsepower super sports car launched
this year.

Coletti and Theodore played key roles in bringing the GT to market.

The GT and SVT vehicles helped make a star out of Coletti, who holds
several performance technology patents. Coletti, who joined in 1972 as
a product design engineer, was instrumental in reviving the Mustang in
the early 1990s after then-Ford Chairman Alex Trotman considered
killing the nameplate or turning it into a front-drive Mazda
derivative.

"He was at the forefront, from the engineering side and even the
marketing side," said Steve Saleen, president of Saleen Inc., which
makes its own brand of high-performance Mustangs.

SVT milestones

1991: Ford SVT division established

1993: Mustang Cobra, Mustang Cobra R, F-150 Lightning arrive in
showrooms

1994: Mustang Cobra chosen for Indy 500 pace car

1996: Mustang Cobra tops 300-hp benchmark with output of 305 hp

1997: SVT Contour arrives in dealerships; all-time SVT sales hit 50,000
units

1999: Lightning introduced with supercharged V-8 making 360 hp; a
shortfall of 50-horsepower leads to Mustang Cobra recall

2000: Third-generation Cobra R debuts as fastest production Mustang
ever with top speed of 170 mph; last year for SVT Contour as base car
disappears from Ford showrooms

2002: SVT Focus added to lineup; all-time SVT production hits 100,000
units

2003: Mustang Cobra output hits 390 hp; SVT announces hiatus until
Mustang Cobra returns as a 2007 model

2004: Last model year for SVT Focus; plans for next-generation
Lightning shelved indefinitely to allow engineers to focus on the
Mustang Cobra.

---end of news clip----

Patrick
'93 Cobra
'83 LTD

My guess is Coletti's planning to follow Caroll Shelby into the
lucrative field of signing glove box doors at $50 apiece.

180 Out
TS 28