New Ford Performance Center opens
Searching for a new Ford in Dallas, Fort Worth? Ford opened their brand new technical support center this week; a state of the art facility that will be used to help Ford both on the race track and off. Initially the facility will be primarily used for NASCAR development, but will soon extend to other motorsports and performance vehicle development.
Located in Concord, North Carolina, the site was chosen due to its proximity to the NASCAR research and development center, and many race team headquarters. The 33,000 square foot space will house Ford Racing technical support, and have development and testing areas.
Advanced simulation tools will help with product development of production performance vehicles such as the Fiesta ST and Mustang GT500. Ford’s goal is to make their entire lineup of performance vehicles profitable, and this new support center should help smooth out development of future vehicles.
A full-motion simulator, much like those used in Formula One, will allow racing teams to set up and test a vehicle before getting to the track. Ford plans on using the knowledge gained by using this technology to help improve driving dynamics for their street legal vehicles.
There are other pieces of testing equipment housed at the Ford Technical Support Center besides the simulator too. These include machines to test chassis structural integrity, center of gravity and part quality/compliance. The facility is expected to be fully operational by later this summer.
