Although Koni has been around for over a hundred years, they wan’t to make sure that they’re offering to the market the products that drivers want to use. They’ve had a huge focus on expanding on the newer vehicles like the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challengers, but that’s not all of it. Koni is still focused on expanding the lineup for other vehicle too, like the Mazda RX–8, as well as expanding into the light trucks and pickup truck market.
Koni knows drivers think of them for their car and racing background, but want to get the word out that they do so many other things as well. Building relationships with other brands is important too, such as the one with Factory Five. They’ve been working together for 15 years now, and whenever Factory Five needs suspension that’s dialed in, they reach out to Koni.
Lee Grimes from Koni mentioned, “So many cars like this (Factory Five) people just adapt parts from other vehicles and it doesn’t really bring a whole complete unit. But in this situation these parts are actually made specifically from driving development work with them.” The best example of that was right there in the Koni booth; a 508hp Factory Five Cobra. Showcasing that quality built components are not only important, but that they need to be built for the application they’ll be used on to really be an all around handling monster.
Grimes also brought up the new SCCA Solo Spec Coupe class (SSC) in which Koni has been nominated as the supplier for a predetermined suspension package and overall vehicle modification package for 2013-2016 FR–S and BRZ. This will bring an ultra-leveled playing field that will pit drivers against each other in mildly modified rides for absolute driver comparison.
“We don’t want to tilt the performance, we want to make the performance more pure, make the car better, make the car more consistent and that way the driver and the teams can bring out their best performance.”