The head of Ford Performance has hinted that the US automaker is considering creating RS versions of selected SUV models.
Dave Pericak, global director of Ford Performance, admitted to British publication Car Dealer that he believed there was a clear “opportunity” in the market for RS-badged SUVs.
“If you did what you needed to do to make it perform the way that an RS should, the answer [to the question of whether Ford would build an RS-badged SUV] would be sure,” he told the magazine.
“I think customers love performance. I think the definition of what that means for an SUV might be different than what it means for a Focus or for a Fiesta. But I think that we’ve seen, even in the US and globally, that people like aggressive-looking cars; they like sporty … they want the power and pick-up and engine improvement, so I think the answer is yes. SUV customers would appreciate performance, for sure.”
Pericak went on to reveal that he wasn’t particularly enamoured with the range of performance SUVs (from other brands) currently on the market.
“If you look at the SUV market right now, there aren’t too many credible performance SUVs out there. There are people who have made partial attempts at it and there are different things that have happened, but there are no real credible ones. So, I think that’s an area of some opportunity, for sure,” he added.
The publication speculated that, of the SUVs in Ford’s current line-up, the Kuga would be the most likely to gain the RS badge first.
“What RS stands for could be applied to other products, for sure. I think that RS can be applied to many different products, it just has to meet certain criteria,” Pericak concluded.
