Jason Castriota is taking on the 300 mph record — and Elon Musk – Los Angeles Times

We all love a good David vs. Goliath story Ford vs. Ferrari (in 1966, or the 2019 movie version), Steve Jobs vs. Microsoft, Harry Potter vs. Voldemort. Not many, however, feature David going up against two Goliaths.

Meet Jason Castriota, the global brand director for Fords battery electric vehicles.

He and the Ford team just launched the companys first ground-up, all-new electric crossover, the Mustang Mach-E. Its a clever, tech-loaded and reasonably priced new entrant (from $36,400 after the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit) to the bustling EV scene. Ford chose to unveil it last month here in Southern California the largest EV market in the country in the same space that Elon Musk unveiled his Cybertruck a few nights later.

So his Goliath No 1: Winning against myriad competitors to bring to market an EV that appeals and steals sales from the Teslas and Audis of the world, among others. Then theres the job of persuading buyers to give up their gas-powered cars for a plug-in existence.

Supercar designer Jason Castriota is also global brand director for Fords battery electric vehicles.

(Clayton Hauck)

For a car company, let alone an executive, that is a high bar. Then theres Castriotas Goliath No. 2: hypercars with four-digit horsepower figures and seven-digit price tags.

Before joining Ford in 2016, Castriota spent the better part of his career dreaming up some of the most innovative concept and hypercars on the planet for example, the 2006 Ferrari P4/5, which he did in conjunction with Pininfarina, the legendary Italian design house that has crafted countless Ferraris over the decades, among other nearly priceless cars. The P4/5 was built as a one-off for film producer, financier and car collector James Glickenhaus.

Working with Jason was very enjoyable, says Glickenhaus. He was able to interpret what I wanted to do an homage to my Ferrari P3/4, which won 24 Hours of Daytona [in 1967] yet still keep it from being a replica. It helped launch all the special projects that Ferrari has since done.

Another Castriota masterpiece: the 2005 Maserati Birdcage 75th concept, a futuristic reimagining of the Italian marques iconic Tipo 61, produced between 1959 and 1961. And on the production-car side, he oversaw the still-in-showrooms Maserati GranTurismo. And the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, and so on. Getting the picture?

From the rear with the doors open, the SSC Tuataras dramatic sculptural shape is accentuated.

(Jason Castriota )

Castriotas latest hypercar project, finished before he joined Ford, is the SSC Tuatara. The two-seater has aerospace-inspired engineering, a fighter-jet-like teardrop canopy and a custom-built twin-turbo, 1,750-horsepower V8 engine. (The name comes from a New Zealand reptile that a study has shown to have the fastest-evolving DNA of any living organism.)

Wait: EVs carrying the Mustang name sound reasonably able to compete on a global stage. But million-dollar bullets why?

There has never been a time when so many seven-figure sports cars have been on the market from McLaren, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG to boutique makers such as Koenigsegg, Pagani and Rimac. SoCal, with its wealth and weather, is a key market.

The SSC Tuatara wants to stand apart by breaking the near-mythical 300-mph mark, which no production road car had ever done until last August, when Bugatti hit 304.77 mph in a heavily modified version of its $2.9 million Chiron. The SSC team will begin top-speed testing in early 2020 at an undisclosed U.S. location, with the hope of besting Bugatti.

If SSC succeeds, it would be the second time the Richland, Wash. based start-up will have beaten Bugatti at the top-speed game. In 2007, the companys first sports car, the Ultimate Aero, achieved 256.14 mph, breaking the 253.81-mph record Bugatti had set in its previous supercar, the Veyron. (In so doing, SSC also created, in partnership with Guinness World Records, a new testing standard of averaging two high-speed runs within a set time window on the same road.)

Achieving three-digit speedswith 300 mph being merely the latest barrier broken but certainly not the lastis not for the faint of heart, as any hyper car maker will tell you. First, the cost of the additional horsepower needed to go that fast only gets more expensive the higher you go. Then theres the incredible balancing act between a cars weight, its relative slipperiness through the air, heat management, durability and drivability. Each of those factors presents its own unique challenges and solutions, explains Castriota. The right fix for one may cause an issue for anotherand you still need to deliver it all in a form that is also visually desirable and comfortable to use.

The $1.625 million (base) Tuatara, whose bespoke engine is made here in SoCal, is the passion project of Jerod Shelby, an engineer and medical-device company cofounder who has been working on putting his vision for a high-performance sports car into reality for two decades. Bringing Jason onto the Tuatara project was one of the best decisions Ive ever made, says Shelby. He accomplished a remarkable feat by penning a striking design with an unmatched aerodynamics package.

Castriota states it more succinctly. From an aerodynamic standpoint, we are far superior to all other hypercars, he says. Some parts of a car such as the Tuatara are subjective, like design. Aero is most definitely not.

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