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.....pressures applied to us. Any cars that we design, develop and build are probably incremental models to cars we're normally building down the lines anyway.
"There is no reason why you shouldn't build our cars - SVE cars - down the line now because we release them in exactly the same way as any other mainstream programme. Nobody in manufacturing has any reason to know that there's anything special about our cars. We don't get any special exemptions. We're not allowed to assemble them in more time consuming ways. We have to meet with the same requirements of assembly as anybody else.
"Therefore, as far as the company is concerned, it's just another Ford product off the line; and the same is true as far as the customer is concerned. We don't expect him or her to suffer from higher noise levels, an awkward driving position or anything like that."
So it seems like integration with the regular production lines and therefore a lower, outwardly more responsible profile are factors which Rod is banking on for the survival of SVE. But what about the bottom line as far as any business is concerned - profits?
"Well, I think everybody has been surprised, including me, at the number of 2.8 injection Capris we've sold. The programme was justified on the volume of 2500 car sales a year throughout Europe, and we sold 7000 in the first year. That's a hell of a lot more than we expected, and therefore it's profitable.
"As far as the XR2 is concerned, the programme volume was around 15,000 units a year - a lot more than ever SVE was intended to do from the start. We did 7000 on our first run alone, even though it was originally planned for 2500. We're presently selling XR2s at the rate of over 30,000 a year. Anyway, it all means good profitability for the company, and I'm obviously glad to see it, but it puts us in a slightly different ballpark from the one in which we started out."
It seems, then, that SVE's immediate future looks quite rosy. So much for the political considerations. What about the cars themselves? Some have said that the 2.8i Capri looks externally bland for a performance car and that the XR2 is merely a bestriped execution of the obvious - fitting the 1600 Kent engine to the Fiesta. Exactly what is SVE's brief when it starts working on a new car? How far can the engineers go with modifications?
"You must realise that SVE works in approximately one year cycles, from conception to Job One on the production line. You don't have much time therefore to do a new bodyshell, and there isn't the expertise among my 12 engineers to undertake significant body changes. Anyway, we are not in that sort of market.
"We are into doing whatever we can while retaining as many standard components as possible. I like to hope we've achieved that with the two cars we've done so far. The modifications have centred largely on damper settings, spring rates and suspension geometry, but it's more than that. It's the total seating environment, where the steering wheel comes, how comfortable you feel in the car. It's also the size of the wheels and tyres, the way the brakes react, the number of gears and the axle ratio - it's all those sorts of things.
"But it is true to say that we are doing things we can change; we're not out to do the impossible. We couldn't do an estate car version of the Capri, for example, because that would entail a lot of significant body panel work, a lot of expensive work on dies, and we just couldn't justify it with the sort of programme we're doing.
"As far as specific models are concerned, the XR3-which was a fait accompli and nothing to do with SVE - was designed to be in a similar bracket to the GTi, but wasn't really intended as a GTi beater. Obviously that's a market we're looking at.
"The Renault R5 Gordini was a car that was selling awfully well on the Continent, and the XR2 was aimed directly at that particular market. It so happened they turbocharged the thing just before we got the XR2 out, but nevertheless, that's the way you aim a vehicle. You see somebody who's got a bit of the market you feel you desire and you try to edge in. Those are the kinds of discussions we'd have with Product Planning. I have a very close liaison with them, and that's a great advantage, in my view."
Mention of the XR3 brought up the question of the "XR" designation, originally just a catchy combination of letters and numbers dreamed up by Marketing but which has since been applied to the performance version of the Fiesta and a special V6 variant of the Cortina sold in South Africa (XR6). Was this now to be an SVE tag?
"No, it's not an SVE badge in any way. It could be used by us-or not. It's just Ford nomenclature. It could well be that we would do an XR model in the future; it could well be that mainstream would. There's no inherent right that's been given to us to do XR models, and this ties in really with the concept that the public should only see cars from Ford. They shouldn't necessarily know they're from SVE or from mainstream."
All the questions so far had been handled with apparent ease. It was time to hit Rod with a more awkward one: what about the press criticism of the XR3, and specifically, the rear suspension?
For the first time that afternoon. Rod Mansfield looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, I don't want to comment on that top much, but I would think it fair to say that the ride isn't as good as it should be for that sort of car. I think perhaps the bias has been put too strongly towards handling - on smooth surfaces it really is fantastic - to the detriment of ride, but it's not really my position to criticise that.
"Let's just say that I share some of the views of the press - certainly not all of them - on the Escort XR3 ride, and in fact the general Escort ride, I would say."
Is it likely you could become involved in a suspension redesign on the XR3?
"Yes, it's the kind of thing we could well be.....
Captions -
Top-Middle - Rod Mansfield in control; at the wheel of an XR2 at Ford's proving grounds. "People do desire more sporting, faster and jazzier versions of production cars, and although I guess the fuel crisis knocked it off for awhile, you can't keep people down forever...."
Middle-Right - CCC (below left and right) was impressed by the Capri 2.8i which remains fine value for money in the performance stakes, while handling far better than any previous production Capri - only its brakes let it down.
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