Jamal Hameedi, Ford Performance chief engineer from 2013 until last month, has left the blue oval for Jaguar Land Rover's Special Vehicle Operations (SVO), according to his LinkedIn profile. A spokesperson for Ford Performance confirmed his departure in an email sent to Road & Track.

Hameedi was an important figure at Ford Performance, as he presided over development of the GT supercar, the Mustang Shelby GT350, the F-150 Raptor, Fiesta ST, and Focus ST and Focus RS. Prior to the creation of Ford Performance in 2013, Hameedi was chief engineer for Ford's Special Vehicle Team (SVT) division starting in 2005, and was the program manager for the 2005-2006 Ford GT.

It's unclear why Hameedi decided to head to JLR. Ford did announce that it will stop selling most of its car lines in North America in favor of crossovers, but it's unknown if that was a contributor to his departure. If he stayed at Ford, Hameedi would still likely be busy. He'd be in charge of developing Ford Performance cars for other markets and hotter SUVs like the Edge ST and recently announced Explorer ST.

This is also the second high-profile departure from Ford Performance in the last year. Dave Pericak, chief and creator of Ford Performance, moved to a new role in Ford's manufacturing division in October. Additionally, one of the biggest champions of Ford Performance, Raj Nair, was ousted from his role as Ford North America president earlier this year over unspecified "inappropriate behavior."

Jaguar Land Rover's SVO division is responsible for all sorts of high-performance, and bespoke versions of the automaker's products. For fast cars, SVO has created the Jaguar F-Type SVR, F-Pace SVR, XE SV Project 8, and Range Rover Sport SVR. We've reached out to a JLR spokesperson for more info on Hameedi's appointment at SVO.

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