Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim the Grey
DFV gave a shine to the Ford name, Escort-BDAs sold Escorts.
Slightly different imaging, I suspect.
But, I also do tend to agree with the Sales Geezer. You cannot say you sold 10 Escort 1.3L because Hannu Mikkola was in town last week... Though of course Roger Clark traded on his rallying history!
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Whilst it would never be possible to link individual sales in the narrow way you suggest I do think you are very wrong, the perception of Ford in pre competition days was low, they simply sold cheap cars and they raised their profile with racing to a large extent. Everything from engines to rallying and the GT40 showed that they had depths of technology giving competion success, technology that was available, would be used in the road cars and this led to improved market share IMO
We should not narrow this discussion however to one make, my firm belief is that the value of competition success is well worth the investment and can be measured in market penetration. When the Mclaren road car is available there will be no shortage of buyers at very high prices because of the image and a belief in the quality of the vehicle. True, the road car is an incidental in this case as the "raison d'etre" of McLaren is F1 but non of us expect it to be a sales flop.