guionM

This is a really good read.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/17/bac...tos_newsletter

The meat of the article is how Ford took a car that's a cash cow, starved it, and now is putting the one vehicle that Ford has done right (outside of Mustang and the F-series truck) and is killing it instead of revising it.



I am getting to the point where I really am disgusted with the Ford Motor Company, and I was once a die hard Ford fan years ago. It seems that Ford North America simply put has their collective heads up their *****.

Ford loses the world class DEW chassis when they kill instead of restyling the LS, and replaces it with a version of the Ford Fusion. Town Car sales have been falling every single year since 1998. Ford effectively shut down Lincoln when they moved it out of the PAG center in California. Ford redesigned the Australian Ford Falcon some years ago, but made no allowance to make it left hand drive, essentially leaving the 20-something plus year old Panther chassis as the only "big" volume RWD sedan in Ford's inventory. Ford refused to spend any money to at the least reskin the Focus. Their Crown Vic-Grand Marquis redesign was essentially gutted. Ford let the Taurus whitter away, and has yet to come anywhere near matching the volume that car sold with it's replacements.

By all accounts, Ford seems to finally have a workable recovery plan. But there's 2 things wrong with it. First, it seems based on Ford shrinking and becoming as dull as Toyota a few years ago. And secondly, Ford seems destined to run out of money before it recovers.


I really wonder how much it would have cost making Euro, South American, and Aussie Fords here. Unlike the cash black hole that's Ford North America, these areas are actually doing fairly well and have cars that no doubt would do more for Ford.


Sorry if this seems like a rant, but with these long series of WTF-style decisions, Ford is starting to sound alot like AMC and Studebaker in the years leading up to their demise.

1990 Turbo Grand Prix

While I won't claim to have an answer for FoMoCo, my observation is that besides the F-150, Mustang, GT, and Fusion, there hasn't been a marketing campaign from any of the Ford Motor Company's divisions that actually makes me interested in one of their products.

Letting models grow stale and then discontinuing them isn't the answer.

It's been brought up before, and should be again; Ford has a lot of interesting and credible models in its global portfolio. Use them.

For Lincoln and Mercury, focus the brands with fewer, but more useful, models.

That's my two cent observation.

flowmotion

Well the core issue for Ford is the disintegration of the mid-sized SUV market -- the place where they need to make up sales is in whatever soccer moms are buying instead of the Explorer.

And I'm not sure, but the Taurus has been almost entirely fleet sales, correct? Selling less Fusions to import-conquest customers isn't necessarily a a bad thing either. I know you're excited guionM about what GM has in the pipe, but having the Fusion and 500 today instead of in 2009 is a huge ray of sunshine on Ford.

I'm also not so negative about the loss of Panther cars -- they flogged those things for a lot of profit for a lot longer than their competitors. Sometimes good things must come to an end -- new RWD models would probably much higher priced than the Panthers and not necessarily such a hit in the fleet market. Not necessarily a bad business decision to get out. Ford has a lot of problems, and Town Cars and Taxi Cabs aren't necessarily the solution.

Threxx

I disagree... killing the Town Car (for now) is a fine idea.

It's an old *** BOF architecture that isn't selling well because most of the people who appreciate them are wearing diapers being watched over by family or nurses.

If they redesigned it to where its driving characteristics appealed more to the next generation, it would likely still carry the stigma of being an old person's car strictly based on the name. Best thing to do is shed the name - design a modernized audience-targeted replacement vehicle, but give it a new name. Then if you really miss the axed name, bring it back in another decade or so when people have started to forget the old town car.

mr00jimbo

I think they can make the Town Car be masculine and "gangster-like" to the point where rappers will be raving about them in songs, making every hood-rich 12-dollar-an-hour "stunna" in the "hood" run out and lease one over a 9 year plan.

i can picture it in my head as being GREAT if they JUST PUT SOME DAMN MONEY INTO IT!!!!

OctaneZ28

Town Car is dated sure, but replacing with a FWD 500 is a definite "WTF move" (credit Guy for coining that phrase lol).
With the move to and re-emphasis on RWD these days, Ford doing the exact opposite really confuses me.
As said, Mustang, F150, Fusion seem to be doing well, but other than that they have nothing!!

I forget who said it here, but it was once mentioned that Ford should push the delete button on the entire Mercury lineup, make the new Lincoln lineup the Mercury lineup, and make a new line of way way better cars for Lincoln.

Whoever said that, I am in complete agreement!

Z28x

They need to keep the Town Car name.... but they need to get away from the luxury taxi imagine it has. I think a Musculer looking stretched Ford FiveHundred with a 4.4L V8 and AWD would work. Make it have class leading rear seat leg room. That could be Lincolns niche.

Good Ph.D

That was me

Giving up the entire livery market when they could probably break down some boxes at the Ontario plant and keep it going? Sure its not flying off dealer lots, but its making them money, and could continue to do so with a minimal investment.

Ford is making "now" decisions, which we can all see they have to. But three models a car company does not make. Don't get me started on the 500/Milan/Mks...

Continental has way more notoriety in the market place then Town Car, you want to revive something, thats what you get your necromancers on.

It incenses me that Ford built THREE count em' THREE concepts that showed exactly what Lincoln should look like then flushed them. In favor of a design that looks like it came from a japanese dime store.

Whats more outrageous is that they HAVE A BRAND, that should be targeted at the imports. It is called Mercury, that is the brand that has more chrome then the Fords but less then the Lincolns.

As for your musclecar they gave that a half assed try and abandoned that too. It was called the Maurader.

WERM

To put it in perspective, consider that the Taurus, which is ONLY sold as a fleet vehicle, is ford's best selling sedan.

I think they're quite dumb. There is a market for a body on frame RWD car. Even at current "low" sales levels they are still selling a lot of them. They could throw in a more modern and powerful engine, 6 speed auto and modernized body on the same frame and sell it another 10 years. Easily.

Instead they are going to invest twice as much in a car that will sell in half the volume.

But hey, letting a model grow so stale that the name is ruined and must be dropped is the American way!

flowmotion

It's impossible to say if it makes financial sense to keep the Town Car without seeing the numbers. But I think one can state that the long term trend is downward with or without a refresh. Not to mention there's mucho Wall Street pressure on Ford (and GM) to close plants and cut marginal models.

And that the replacement products aren't very compelling (which is unknown -- they just don't look like those Batmobile concept cars) is really a seperate matter entirely. Even if they keep the Town Car, Lincoln badly needs new products.

Good Ph.D

Why would a Lincoln that looks like an Acura sell any better then the Ford that looks like a Honda its based off of?

flowmotion

Why wouldn't a modern "Honda" and "Acura" be more profitable and better positioning than ancient Tauruses and Panthers that are largely sold to fleets? If Honda customers start considering Ford, that's an enormous long-term benefit for them. (And note that's something they're doing today, not four years from now. Sometimes it pays to take a longer term view instead of just pushing out the tin to make numbers.)

But my point was really that a new car with a different target audience is an independent decision from keeping the Town Car. Lincoln could do both if they thought it was a good idea.

Good Ph.D

Two independent decisions, both bad.

They've got a plant producing Crown Vics and Mercs, all they gotta do is ship the Lincoln grilles to Canada and either start another shift, or play with the production numbers. Now you're still making money and still have an entry in the market.

People buy Hondas from Honda. Not Ford. They should have learned that with the 500. Swore it was going to compete with imports at their price point. Two weeks later the 300 comes out. Now Ford has to drop the cars price -- making profits even slimmer -- so it can compete with a car it can't compete with, while again charging less then the imports for same content.

Now they are gonna add yet a third also ran to the lineup on this Volvo platform which has proven to only accomodate wierd sheetmetal, while the award winning DEW 98 dies. And as said above, try to turn plow horse into a racehorse by adding AWD, then make sure its ridicolously priced by using FI when NA is the way to go.

Yeah.

guionM

I've read more dead on points in this thread than any other in memory, which makes the decisions of supposedly smarter executives making far more than us making these types of decisions absolutely baffling.


Why not ship Town Car's machinary to the Ontario plant that's making Crown Vics and Grand Marquis and increase the plant's utilization and make some desperately needed extra money in the process?

Why did Ford after spending a ton of money on the DEW chassis, and during most of the Lincoln LS' life it ran neck in neck with Cadillac's CTS in sales, yet instead of springing for a new body after running the old one for 6 years that would keep the car competitive, Ford pulls the plug on the thing?

Why after creating a new distinctive design language for Lincoln via it's concept cars, Ford decided to dup it all in favor of a design that's likely to be confused as a new Lexus or Infinity?

The Taurus (like it or not) had name recognition, and was the last US car to be the number 1 selling car in America (or even the top 3). Yet Ford (again) hadn't touched the design in over 6 years.



Ford was in a similar situation in the early 1980s. They were staring down the barrel and had little money for new chassis. So Ford used everything in their arsenal and pulled off some amazing stuff with no really new chassis and minimal costs:

* Radical ground breaking design on existing cars.
* Engineering in handling into everything.
* Put performance in everything they could, from the Hot Rod Lincoln Mark 7 LSC to simply putting dual exhausts on base V6 Thunderbirds and Mustang HO running gear on the Fox LTD sedan.
* Going to Germany, and importing an autobaun ready coupe & sedan (made the mistake in calling the line Merkur instead of Mercury).
* and finally, took a real gamble on a single model that pushed the styling envelope over a clift (and created a new design theme that we are only now moving away from!), set a new benchmark in quality in it's day, had innovation almost everywhere you looked, handled & braked like sports sedans of the day, and came in at a price that was competitive with the far more dull and suddenly cheaply made offerings accross town.


Seems today's Ford guys are doing the exact opposite.

flowmotion

Depends what the finance spreadsheets say.

I won't deny that Ford's ancillary products are a mess. Nobody, even at Ford, seems to have a clear idea what they're doing with Lincoln. They screwed the Taurus. The 500's been a gigantic dud, mainly due to styling -- but that's presumably fixable.

Still, having solidly designed, well reviewed mainstream cars on the market today is a huge advantage for Ford. They need volume products to make up for the collapse of the Explorer market. The niche stuff can come later.

Which is a serious problem if you're Ford or GM.