Booted From Ford, Raj Nair Shows Up at Ford GT Builder Multimatic

Raj Nair, former executive vice-president of Ford Motor Company and head of its North American region, has joined the company that built his car.

Nair took delivery of a Ford GT — a vehicle he helped develop during his time as product development boss and chief technical officer — shortly before his sudden and murky February exit from the company. Well, he’s now president and CEO of Multimatic Motorsports, Canadian builder of the GT.

Road & Track broke the news on Friday, with Multimatic marketing vice-president Michael Guttilla telling the publication, “Raj brings extensive knowledge, perspective and skills in engineering, manufacturing, management and overall auto industry experience to Multimatic. These qualities will help Multimatic attain another level of performance for our customers.”

“The addition of Raj to our leadership team was about making a great company even better. His skill-set is perfectly aligned with Multimatic’s core competencies and purpose,” Guttilla added.

Nair was appointed to the top position on May 7th. It seems Nair himself spilled the beans before anyone else, announcing his new role in a post at FordGTForum.com.

The executive’s departure from Ford came after an internal investigation revealed “inappropriate behaviour” on the part former former exec. A tip sent to the company from a single employee sparked the investigation. Ford claimed Nair’s behaviour was “inconsistent with the company’s code of conduct,” though details of whatever sparked his ouster never surfaced.

Multimatic, based in Markham, Ontario, is neck-deep in motorsports. Besides its expertise in car design and track support, the company engineers endurance racing components like its DSSV spool-valve dampers. That’s in addition to its contract to build EcoBoost-powered Ford supercars.

Shortly after turning away a stampede of buyers for its limited-edition 2017-2018 Ford GT, Multimatic announced a two-year extension of GT production, with those left on the waiting list now first in line.

[Image: Ford Motor Company]