I blocked the source a long time ago, been happier ever since

 

You gotta admit, Ford's artists drawings tend to look more like the real car than GM's artists drawings (remember the new Malibu?). The 500 came out looking as advertised, and the Fusion looks to be going the same way.

Ford's styling, while not exactly revolutionary or cutting edge, is very attractive & stylish with plenty of attention to detail.

The Milan seems like it's going to be a good looking car.

 

The G6 and Malibu don't share body panels, niether do the Buick, Chevy, Pontiac W-body and Mid-lux cars. Other than Vans, and a few pickups GM has gotten away from shareing 90% of their body panels with Chevrolets.

 

Here's more info on Milan fron Detroit News:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosins...c01-255973.htm

 

looks good on paper, at least

 

I think Al is referring to the fact that Ford woke up one day and realized...."Hey, we have no new vehicle product coming...lets raid Mazda and Volvo!" GM develops most of it's volume platforms on the company level...then gives them to the brands to well.....brand. The Daewoo aquisition and Saab 9-2 are low vaolume exceptions.

Ford on the other hand said wait a minute...Mazda has already paid for the 6 platform (which is a great platform)....so why not make 8 new vehicles off it

While it may make sense from a money standpoint it looks bad for Ford...since the Fusion and Five-Hundred are coming out so late after the Mazda and Volvo version did. Magnifying this is the fact that Mazda and Volvo are not integrated into Ford on the same level Buick, Chevy, and Pontiac are at GM. It makes me picture all the Ford directors sitting around and looking for the quickest, cheapest way to get something new to market.

 

why does it make ford look bad? did your image of ford tarnish? Point is Mazda had developed a great platform.... they gave it to Ford to use... if it aint broken dont fix it...

honestly your customers dont care....rides great, good, it will sell. Business and investors will love it, and I am sure they do...

the whole point is... instead of wasting money on a platform that may or not be great....Mazda built a platform that turned out great, so now the parent company is going to use it. Reduces risk.

On the other hand... we have a platform developed, then you give the platform to your brands, have them develop a car for it... while no one knows how great the platform is because nothing was out yet being used by many cars... so instead of having one model using the platofrm is a guinea pig possibly being a flop you have a whole corporation wasting money on something that may or may not work.


Heck, GM did the same thing... they used the Monora platform, saw it was good, and now kidna rolling it out globally( by improving it), but it was first developed by Holden for monaros.

 

are you blind? that's a VW Passat...

 

Impala, Regal, and Grand Prix, and Monte all look very different from one another, where as the Sable has minimal changes, same goes for the Grand Mark.

And please dont give me the anti-ford BS. Merc's cars are just rebadges of Fords, and I dont have to be a GM fan to say that. Anyone with brains and a non-ford fan boy bias can see that every Merc model is just a rebadged Ford. Only car that doesnt share that much, is the Mountaineer.

 

man, im a ford fan boy and I can see it! Mercury needs something exciting bad.
from the sketches, the milan looks a lot more elegant than the bolder styled fusion (judging by the names, thats seeming like a given) Maybe they can differentiate these models in character and styling enough that people wont notice

 

Uh you don't know much about the Mountaineer. A face lift and tail light swap and BOOM! Explorer. You know ALOTabout face and tail changes Big Al, Think of Chevy,GMC and Caddy's SUV's- Oh wait they dont share "any" body panels I forgot. Heck I think the "cheap" Chevy (Big) SUV has the same dash as the "pricey" (Big) Caddy SUV does'nt it? From my stand point the IP is the most looked at item (other then the clear windshield) by its "owner" and my god I would be pissed to know that the dash in my Caddy is the same as that "cheap" Chevy.

(Not bashing Chevy here guys just making a point.)

 

I was talking about sedans, as Ford does the same thing as GM, as Nissan with there SUV's and trucks.

Put up a Malibu, G6, and 9-3, and show me 1 body pannel that could swap?
Put up a Grand Prix, Impala, Regal, and Monte, and show me 1 body pannel that could swap?
No do the same for the Taurus/Sable and Crown Vic/Grand Mark.

 

Big al, there are more differences, yes the exterior looks the same... there is more differences with the cars than body panels.... Hence why Camry and Es300 are differnt cars differnt buyers.

The sad part is.... I think right now that hte sable/ford and crownvic/gm are selling better than alot of the gm models.

The point is they are selling right? they have different buyers... it seems to be working for them, so how would you fix it? lol.

 

GM has more brands, which dilutes each brand's invidual sales. Compare Taurus/Sable sales to GM W-body sales and tell me what you get.

GM does have nothing that competes with the Crown Vic....but on the reverse Ford has had nothing to compete with the N-body/Epsilon class of small/mid-sized sedans. The Fusion will fill this hole...but in a few years GM will fill it's large RWD sedan hole

 

I can't beleive you (of all people) wrote something like this.
Where have you been for 2 years?

I corrected your statement below...

Ford woke up one day and realized...."Hey, we have a moron running the place, and we're going broke due to sh1++y business models and cost-cutting in the wrong places. We need a new leader!"
Ref to the Nasser days.

Dude, Ford had to back-track, and do damage control. That meant cutting some of the best-looking new car developments that were on the board (along with some chitty ones too), and putting the precious monies that were left into bread-and-butter cars and trucks like Mustang and F-150, and bet the rest on a FEW new developments like the Freestyle and 500. As I said in the Mercury thread, Ford has actually done a remarkable job turning the corner back to profitability on a shoestring budget, and is poised now to move ahead with newer developments.

GuionM has done a great job covering the models that Ford had in the line and killed over the last year or two. Despite Ford's recent depression, they are still committed to rolling out 65 new models in 5 years - that's pretty aggressive if you ask me. This situation of no new units (especially for Linc/Merc) was no "surprise" one morning... it was intentional and deliberate, and done to fortify the remaining units that ARE critical to Ford.

It isn't just Ford either, GM has done their fair share of model development killing, and revamping of platforms since Lutz came on board. But GM wasn't in the poor-house from bad decisions the way Ford was with the Explorer, Focus, and Mustang debacles.

Lastly (not at you F79), I don't see how anybody at GM can badmouth Ford for sharing platforms anyways. What carmaker doesn't... especially GM. So what if the 1/4-panel is shaped differently? If the customer buys it - it worked.
Do you think Curtis Mathis and RCA televisions are made by different companies in different plants too?
Maytag and Kenmore? MTD and Lowes mowers?
Heck, not only in the same plant, but on the same LINE, they just get different labels. BIG DEAL.

You guys have to understand that you are talking $million$ to develop tooling to stamp sheetmetal, much less the engineering to fit the panels, crash test, and integrate into the production line, and such. That's a huge pill to swallow when you can hardly pay the workers' for the lines you already have tooled and running. Maybe when things are a little more profitable and the immenent danger of bankruptcy is long gone, we will se totally new stuff for Linc/Merc that does not look like photocopies of Ford units, but I can't see them justifying the extra expenditures right now so that a few car-nuts and die-hard car-tech junkies can say ,"Yeah, those cars have different skins - they're not copies of Fords."
The mony is better spent on improving interiors, drivetrains, and NVH numbers that are far more important and felt by the driver every time they get in the car. IMO, THOSE are the points that will help sales, moreso than subtle reskinning, and I see them doing just that.