How do you improve the ever-popular Ford Mustang? That was the question the folks at Roush Performance, a builder of low volume customized vehicles, asked themselves as the company considered a new product idea. They found enough good ideas to answer this question that they decided to develop the Roush Performance Mustang, a high performance, racing version of the venerable Ford Mustang.

One of the improvements identified was a custom fascia for the vehicle. Not only would it provide a distinctive appearance for the Roush Performance vehicle, but it would also improve overall performance by reducing drag and providing better airflow to the engine.

A 62% reduction in time and effort and a design more true to the concept too! Based on the success of this single project, Roush engineers used the scanning process for every custom body component developed for the Roush Performance Mustang including the fascia, side skirt, and rear bustle.

Roush decided conventional methods were too inaccurate, too costly, and too slow to accomplish their objectives in the time required. They decided to use Perceptron’s ScanWorks software and Contour Probe to generate a3-dimensional digital representation of the clay fascia that would be exactly as the designers created.

By mounting the Contour probe on a portable articulated portable CMM arm from CimCore, Roush was able to capture exactly what the designers created and approved. And by scanning at more than 23,000 points / second, the complete fascia design didn’t take long to turn into a digital file.

Next the Roush engineers imported the fascia digital point file into Delcam’s CopyCAD software. This software turned the thousands of data points on the fascia into a perfect 3-dimensional surface of the new fascia. The 3-D file became the reference standard to validate the prototype and final production fascia too.

From concept to production parts, Roush needed only 9 weeks! A 62% reduction in time and effort and a design more true to the concept too! Based on the success of this single project, Roush engineers used the scanning process for every custom body component developed for the Roush Performance Mustang including the fascia, side skirt, and rear bustle.

Roush’s decision to veer from the conventional processes saved them months of development time on the project. The 3-Dimensional files they developed enabled them to produce prototypes quicker, approve them for production, and check serial production for conformance.