Hot Territory not until next generation: FPV boss

Ford Performance Vehicle’s boss Sak Ryopponen has confirmed the worst kept secret in Aussie performance motoring – Ford’s hotshoe brigade is seeking to build a high-performance variant of the Territory. But, and it’s a big but, he has poured cold water on any hopes of the Cayenne-chaser arriving until the next generation of Falcon/Territory arrives in 2008.

Talking at the launch of FPV’s revised and expanded BF MkII based range in Sydney yesterday (see CarPoint for details tomorrow), Ryopponen said the Prodrive-owned performance division had the top-selling Ford SUV “firmly in its sights.” He also intimated it had completed engineering trials.

Though a hotter Territory has been discussed in private before, this is the first time any on-the-record comment has been made about the potential addition to the FPV line-up.

“Every project that was off the table is back on the table,” Ryopponen told CarPoint referring to the potential product mix of FPV.

“There are some priority projects we’re looking at, but above all they have to make sense from a business case perspective.

“We would definitely like to do something with Territory and we have the capability to do something with Territory, whether it can become a commercial reality [now] is the issue. We have proved we can do [engineer] it.”

Ryopponen confirmed however that no approved program for the existing model Territory existed. With the current Falcon and Territory due to be replaced in 2008, he stated that the time it takes to gain approval for the program would make it impossible for the all-paw hottie to arrive until the next generation.

The FPV boss also conceded that there would be no “major” changes to its largely Falcon-based range in the short term.

According to FPV product chief Mark Behr, save for one model due to be announced at Sydney tomorrow, it believes it has “filled the market opportunities available to it” with current Falcon-based content.

According to Ryopponen the game will change with the new generation car: “2008 and beyond is a new ball game,” he said.

“Our wishlist [for the new generation Falcon and Territory] has been in for some time. We have some opportunity for refinement of that wishlist, [but] that window is closing pretty rapidly. We’re happy with where we are, with the state of play given we have had to do a lot of the core work already,” he said.

Ryopponen said the new Ford and FPV models would debut close together. Holden and HSV recently did the same thing with their respective VE-based ranges. But he also confirmed that FPV needed to move beyond just large car product and that the company still sought to offer a wider model mix.

“We’d like to offer a broader range of vehicles that we currently do,” he said. “As opportunities arise we will beat them to death in terms of trying to make them work… We have a will to build very much beyond what we do at the moment.”