Sometimes great things are born out of hardship. We often come through hard times better in many ways than before we experienced those bumps in the road of life. Such is the case with the F-150 SVT Raptor. 2008 was not a great year for America, the stock market had tanked, the auto industry was in freefall, and people were losing jobs left and right. Hardly the best time to focus on building a premium, off-road capable pickup truck. As it turns out, the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor came to be under these dire circumstances, and it has proven to be an exceptional success.

Autoweek has this video interview with Ford’s head of global performance, Jamal Hameedi, who discusses why, even though many people in and outside of the industry thought SVT was crazy for pursuing the Raptor project, they went through with it anyway.

Hameedi reveals that initially, the project began as a third-generation follow-up to the Ford F-150 Lightning. But they were having trouble matching the performance of the second-generation Lightning, so the team switched gears and decided to focus instead on a Baja 1000, off-road capable pickup. A major change in direction, one that proved to be the right move.

There was literally no competition in the market for a premium, off-road pickup, and Ford has come to now dominate the market-segment they created with the Raptor. More than 40,000 SVT Raptors have been sold since the truck’s 2009 debut, and even Shelby is offering a supercharged version of the Raptor. Demand was so high that Shelby American even had to up the available production.

If you’re a Raptor fan, this video is for you. This is one big risk that paid off in spades for Ford, we hope they learn from this example and continue to offer performance fans and the marketplace packages that are big hits everywhere.