proud, there was a stang gt in "the oc"
just letting you know they did get it out a little

 

One word. WOW.

 

All of the cars that ProudPony linked to look AMAZING, and have pretty powerful motors. 290kw is like what, 370hp? That's pretty damn good.

 

Mother****er! What the ****! ****ing....****!

Why in the **** is ford not making cars like that here? I know from talking to some aussies that they like their fast cars a bit more than we do up here, but ....****!

 

I hear ya! You are correct!

So Ford got a background shot in a show on the WB...
GM got a 2-hour movie in which the GTO was the star...
Mmmmm.... Close!

 

Noooooooooooooooooo chit.

 

Actually a little more than 370hp... 290Kw converted is...
290*1000/746 = 388.7hp - NATURALLY ASPIRATED TOO.
They are using the BOSS 260 and BOSS 290 engines extensively down there.

 

Not only do the exteriors look hot, but did any of you look at the interiors?!?!
GT-P
Super Pursuit
Typhoon
Falcon XR8

I have been smitten with their cars for the last 3-4 years.
The Aussies have it going on down there!

 

it makes me want to move there.

 

Because Ford could take all the R&D money on those cars with a $1000 profit margin and funnel it into R&D for SUVs with a $3000 profit margin. It isn't because we don't want them, rather its because we want SUV's and trucks. Basically Ford and GM have starved their car lines because trucks and SUVs sell in this country at higher profit margins. In Australia you have to be competitive in the car market because that is all there is.

Now I am a Ford hater most of the time, but DAMN. Ford looks to be giving Holden and HSV some serious competition. The real muscle car war seems to be in Australia.

 

Ok, so Ford is in a change over...and its ok, we can let them wait.
But GM needs everything NOW!!
It needs RWD NOW
It needs a Camaro NOW
It needs supercharged V8 Solstices NOW
Everything needs to be RWD, everything needs to have 400hp, and everything has to handle on rails and be priced under 25k...but only GM.
Ford...eh..they can wait. No need to rush the 3.5 Durtec, lets leave the 10 year old 3.0 to do the work in a near 2 ton car and push its AWD.
No need to rush the Fusion and others to a new cars...the 30 year old Taurus should hold up fine.
No need to hurry up on any sort of replacement or anything for the Panther cars...just take your time. I mean...the Mustang should hold everyone over till whenever.

And its not about excitement, its about product, and GM has it in spades. Outside of the underpowerd, and overweight 500, Ford has nothing to bank on. Focus is sad compared to what the rest of teh world gets to drive.

 

Could be the massive cost of developing LHD?
Ford Aussie doesnt export vehicles like Holden does, or doesnt export them to LHD nations.

 

I'd have to say that the "American Revolution" sucks

 

EXCELLENT ProudPony!

Your idea hits on a very simple and inexpensive way to bring this to market, shows a knowledge of some of the problems involved, and gives a great jump off point in which to make it happen IMHO.

Send your idea (including all the points you made) to:

Board of Directors
c/o Philip R. Martens
Group Vice President
Product Creation
Ford Motor Company
P.O. Box 685
Dearborn, MI 48126-0685
U.S.A.

Or drop an e-mail to:
https://www.ford.com/en/support/emailUs.htm.

With the new and likely final Panther coming up shortly, it's a good opportunity to inject some excitement in these cars, this time for real.

 

Just a marketing slogan at the moment. By the time it becomes permanently associated with Chevrolet by everyone, Chevy will have a stream of new models coming out.

I think RP's words here were "I don't know how I'm going to get them all on display".

We're talking about a industry that can create an entire car variation for $60 million. The price of converting the Falcon to LHD would be more than offset by the number of cars it would sell here. I think there's something like 80-100K Falcons sold in Australia per year. Ford could easily sell 30,000 here, which would more than cover the costs.

The problem is Ford of Australia manufactures less cars than Holden. Holden manufactures cars for the middle east, New Zealand, and a few otrher countries. Ford of Australia is pretty much limited to Oz and New Zealand, and isn't intrested in expanding capacity since Ford NA & Europe covers what Ford Australia doesn't.

Seems like only yesterday I was skewing DamlierChrysler over choking products at Chrysler, and GM was the darling because it was actually looking like it was going to bring out great cars in record time.


I think there's a misunderstanding. I thought I mentioned it here, but it was in the "designers" thread.

J. Mays is a fashion designer. His outstanding talent is taking shapes that have been around forever, and normally would be as boring as hell, and turning them into jewels of fashion. I used the Mustang and F series as examples. The new F series truck is essentially the super duty design that's been around over 10 years. But because of very minor tweaks, and attention to detail, it is an exceptionally good looking truck without having to resort to oversized grilles, or even side character and creases.

Mays is also IMHO the best car interior designer on the planet at the moment.

The issue I have with Ford isn't so much the styling of J. Mays, it's the chassis direction they are going. The DEW is an exceptional chassis, and with minimal investment (ie: Mustang's D2C) it will be a very cost effective structure. Yet, it's the FWD Volvo based chassis that seems to be getting the nod because of it's AWD capability. There's a good chance that Mustang will be the only RWD car at Ford dealerships in a couple of years.

There should be final (or near final) decisions coming up over the next year or so over the Bird and the Cat. The thing that troubles me is not only what the Panther seems to be destined to replaced by. It's that this is actually being considered for those 2 coupes as well.


Intresting observation.

Very intresting.