Ford uncertain on SVT’s future?

Ford announced today that beginning with the GT500 release this summer all of Ford’s 3777 dealerships will be able to sell SVT products. Previously a dealership had to apply for the right to sell SVT vehicles, and only 600 dealers were given the honor of making SVT sales. The announcement by Ford to open up SVT sales had many wondering about the future of the SVT brand. Ford announced late last year that the SVT Lightning, based on the F150 truck, would be discontinued. SVT also dropped plans for the Sport Trac Adrenalin utility vehicle.

Ford says it’s not backing away from performance products, but insiders think Ford may be folding the SVT marketing team into the regular Ford brand team. Some also expect SVT’s engineering team may be diluted or tied more closely to Ford’s racing efforts.

Current SVT dealers are disappointed. They believe that opening up SVT to all dealerships dilutes the brand and hurts their chances for success. Ultimately, they feel, it is the customer who loses out on the experience offered by the established SVT dealers.

Ford tried a similar approach when the SVT Focus was introduced several years ago. They offered 700 additional dealers the opportunity to sell just the SVT Focus. The full-line SVT dealers said this really diminished the cars popularity as it basically was perceived as a standard Focus with a few extra options.

Ford, amidst their recent struggles to be profitable, believes expanding the SVT dealership network will help in overall Ford vehicle sales. SVT has never before been a apart of Ford’s national marketing efforts, perhaps because they felt people wouldn’t know where to go to find one. With SVT’s appearing on every dealer lot this wouldn’t be a problem.

(By the way, the photo is a spy shot of a pair of GT500’s in Vegas last year. More images here.)