2019 Cobra Jet program in jeopardy ?

[D.Johns]

Originally Posted by Coleydog

I think this happens a lot, non car guys in top management, bean counters. Since when does racing have to turn a profit, its advertising, the rest of the line absorbs the cost. It worked in the old days and can work now, winning sells cars. Hate to say it but Toyota understands that idea.

The only way the Cobra Jet program came into existence was their ability to make the cars and sell them at a profit. The program was nearly killed before it even began when initially a different engine was proposed to be used that was built by an individual’s company(who posts on here). That engine was going to be up on price and not run in the fastest class. However in that meeting Wolfe spoke up and said what about the GT500 engine how much does that unit cost us to make? That blower in the FRPP Catalogue, how much is our cost on that? Ronzello what class would that put us in running Stock Eliminator? Alright let’s do that instead.... Kershaw also busting in exclaiming that they hadn’t made the same mistake as they did with the “GT40” trademark and had the rights to use the “Cobra Jet” name again.

proposal accepted because it was shown to be profitable. Remember this is 2008 just after the giant financial meltdown. A time when Ford sold nearly every brand and took out massive loans leveraging the blue oval itself under Mulally/Fields One Ford plan. You weren’t going to get anything through if it wasn’t world class leading and was profitable.