Multimatic Race Programs Placed Under New SVO Arm

Multimatic has announced the creation of a new Special Vehicle Operations division that will be responsible for the company’s motorsport projects among other activities.

The new MSVO department will be an offshoot of the Multimatic Engineering arm of the core business, which exists alongside Multimatic Mechanisms and Multimatic Structures & Suspension.

MSVO will cover all vehicle engineering developments and race team operations, as well as low-volume vehicle chassis manufacture, carbon fiber part production and low-volume component supply.

Multimatic Engineering will focus on the company’s high-volume industrial manufacturing activities.

MSVO will be led by Multimatic chief technical officer Larry Holt while former Ford Motor Company vice president Jim Holland will take charge of Multimatic Engineering.

Multimatic has a long tenure in sports car racing. It currently runs the Mazda RT24-P DPi program in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship and also operates Ford Mustang GT4s in Europe and North America.

It also developed the 24 Hours of Le Mans GTE-Pro class-winning Ford GT and last year announced an exclusive Mk. II version of the car for track day use.

“Multimatic continues to grow, in both size and technical diversity and this restructuring means we can remain true to our decentralized, agile and innovative operating philosophy,” said Multimatic president and COO Raj Nair.

“Multimatic is capable of engineering and manufacturing at extremely low and extremely high levels of volume, as well as engineering and manufacturing at the individual component level all the way to a full vehicle level.

“Not to mention our capabilities and accomplishments at the highest levels of global motorsports, this now demands a higher level of specialization and that is what the split will facilitate.”

MSVO executive vice president Holt explained that expertise and resources will be shared between the two separate divisions of the Multimatic Engineering group.

“Multimatic’s model has always been to break the growing businesses down into smaller, more agile operations, and so it has become time for Engineering,” he said.

“After 32 years of continued growth, the size and diversity was becoming limiting.

“High volume component and systems engineering ultimately requires a different approach to the development of an entire low volume vehicle and so the management of those types of projects has now been split.

“However, as in the past, engineering resources will be shared as it makes no sense to try and duplicate functions like the best predictive methods organization in the industry; simulation will stay with the engineering group and continue to grow in size and capability.”

Nair added: “This new structure will allow Larry to focus on vehicle engineering and motorsports, while Jim manages the Engineering Group.

“Jim brings more than 35 years of experience in the automotive industry at Ford Motor Company and Jaguar Land Rover, where he served in progressive engineering leadership roles.

“Refocusing our engineering leadership team provides a clear structure that will allow us to continue to deliver on our commitment to ‘Strength Through Technology’.”