Kerry Baldori, Ford\u2019s chief functional engineer<\/a>\u00a0for Ford Performance, on Laguna Seca Raceway\u2019s main straight during media testing of his team\u2019s brand new, 2016 Shelby GT350 Mustang isn\u2019t easy. Because with a track-full of 8250 RPM, 526 horsepower Mustangs going by every 30 seconds it gets. Really. Loud. So the conversation goes kind of like this.<\/p>\nMe: Kerry, when did Ford start work on ROOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!<\/i><\/p>\n
Baldori: Can you repeat the question?<\/i><\/p>\n
Baldori is used to it. Because not only does he oversee the ferocious GT350, he is responsible for the entire stable of Ford performance thoroughbreds including the Focus ST, Fiesta ST, all-wheel-drive Focus RS, F-150 Raptor, and the alpha male of the herd: The Ford GT supercar which will debut in the 24 Hours of LeMans in France next year to rekindle Ford\u2019s 50-year-old race rivalry with Ferrari.<\/p>\n
It would also be a nice 50th\u00a0birthday present for Baldori. The life-long motorhead grew up in Frankenmuth, Michigan where he flogged go-karts and mauled drag strips in his first racer, a \u201969 Camaro. With degrees from Western Michigan and Wayne State, Baldori joined Ford 26 years ago where he built a resume on the cutting edge of vehicle performance.<\/p>\n
Baldori\u2019s team shocked the world with the stunning Ford GT at January\u2019s Detroit Auto Show. But the 600-plus-horsepower supercar also signaled a new, more focused performance direction for Ford.<\/p>\n
From its dominance of LeMans in the 1960s to NASCAR to its RS division in Europe to its stateside SVT hot rods, Ford has a long history of making quick cars. But the effort was never organized under one roof until now.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to Ford Performance organization it was kind of hit and miss,\u201d says Baldori. \u201cThen six-to-seven months ago we brought everything together under the Ford Performance umbrella. That has really been a huge change. It not only bring our products together globally, but also the motorsports organization (including) our technical organization that supports NASCAR and all the specific race organizations we\u2019re involved in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baldori credits Raj Nair, Ford\u2019s chief technical officer for Ford Global Product Development, for the change. \u201cHe\u2019s a huge supporter of our team and performance in general,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The Shelby GT350 was in the works well before the consolidation. Indeed \u2013 after being estranged for years \u2013 Ford and Shelby rekindled their \u201960s flame after the new, retro-styled, fifth-generation Mustang was unveiled in 2005. A GT500 stoplight king followed in 2007, the first of a series of 500s that culminated with a 2013 model with a 5.8-liter V-8 putting out an insane 662 horsepower. It was a brute.<\/p>\n
But with the more nimble, sixth-generation Mustang chassis, Baldori\u2019s team was eager to go beyond face-flattening, straight-line performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe GT500 was mainly about power but we always tried to make it as track capable as possible,\u201d he reflects. \u201cWe always wanted to make a naturally-aspirated, well-balanced, lightweight car that would go back to that original GT350 that could live up to the Shelby name. There has been a GT350 done through Shelby America \u2013 but we had never done a GT350 before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Performance team set a high bar. How high? They benchmarked the GT350 to Porsche\u2019s best: The 911 GT3.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to benchmark and try to improve ourselves,\u201d says Baldori. \u201c(The GT3) became an inspirational benchmark for us. We learned a lot from the car, it\u2019s all part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
That benchmark meant taking the GT350 to the track this year against Porsches and BMW M3s where it has had a stellar rookie season winning at both Mosport and Watkins Glen. Multimatic, a racing team out of Toronto, prepares the Mustangs \u2013 as itwill the Ford GT for LeMans<\/a>. Baldori knows a thing or two about pro racing himself having been embedded by Ford in Newman Haas Indy car racing team in the 1990s as a vehicle dynamacist.<\/p>\nut developing a performance car today also means engineering for comfort. You wouldn\u2019t know it by the nearby GT350s making our ears bleed in full-predator TRACK mode (one of five modes including Eco and Drag) \u2013\u00a0ROOAAAARRR!<\/i>\u00a0– but the muscle car was made for everyday driving comfort.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to drive. It\u2019s incredibly quiet,\u201d says Baldori. \u201cA lot of extreme performance cars have their little quirks. These cars are really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that great garage in the sky, Carroll Shelby must be smiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Interviewing\u00a0Kerry Baldori, Ford\u2019s chief functional engineer\u00a0for Ford Performance, on Laguna Seca Raceway\u2019s main straight during media testing of his team\u2019s brand new, 2016 Shelby GT350 Mustang isn\u2019t easy. Because with a track-full of 8250 RPM, 526 horsepower Mustangs going by every 30 seconds it gets. Really. Loud. So the conversation goes kind of like this. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17151,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17149\/revisions\/17151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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