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As most of us know: the Detroit Three car manufacturers are in some serious trouble-------to the point that we may wind up losing one of them in about 2-3 years.
My 'gut' tells me it will be Ford; in at least its present form.
My guess is Ford will do fine. They are coming out with some excellent, quality cars such as the Ford Taurus and Edge and people will notice and start buying them.
I been impressed with their vehicles lately. If they continue that path, the company will do fine. However, I noted such new vehicle such as the 2007 Toyota camry had their problems and the company is relying on past reputation to put them throught. I think people will start noticing that camry is not the best anymore but such dometic cars as the Edge are.
A few years ago people were complaining about the quality of Detroit cars. They showed this with the use of their pocket books too. Detroit is responding by pulling up there quality standards. The problem is with the cost. The big three are paying out millions each year in HUGE benifits to the workers. But I think all three will pull through. They have done this with other massive problems as well. When people start to notice the higher quality cars rollin off the lines, they will start to purchase the cars again.
I could see them consolidating into one big american company.
Actually ford's problem has not been with their car, it has been because of their debt. The one ceo bought all these other companies, volvo, jaguar, etc... what was HE thinking.
And they are the holding company for mazda. Ford will do just fine if they can control their debt. The cars are good cars with reliable track records for the most part.
My big problem with ford all these years (own many fords) is that it is too stodgey! They have all these cool fords in europe (their european market presence may save the company). They don't bring them here. The ones here are BORING!!
My guess is Ford will do fine. They are coming out with some excellent, quality cars such as the Ford Taurus and Edge and people will notice and start buying them.
If anything the present Taurus is an excellent example of what got Ford into the trouble it's in today. The only reason the car is called the Taurus is because nobody was buying those things when they were called the Five Hundred. So instead of facing the fact that nobody's buying them because they're the same ponderous, overweight, ill-handling, underpowered, uninspired and uninspiring junk the Big Three has been selling us for two decades, they pretend it's a marketing problem and re-name it the Taurus. So they're doing exactly what you claim Toyota is doing -- trading on past reputation instead of engaging in product innovation. And speaking of Toyota, they are doing just fine as they are poised to surpass GM as the world's largest automaker by the end of the decade -- if they haven't already.
I still can't believe Ford never even thought about making a turbocharged AWD Focus RS to trade on its rally heritage like Subaru did with the WRX. Subaru's cachet in this country has increased tremendously since they brought the WRX to the North American market, and they have brought a lot of buyers into their ranks that have since moved up to Legacy GTs. Ford missed a golden opportunity to get their hooks into a new, young customer base.
And no small convertible - 4 or 6 cylinder. The only convertible they make is the mustang which is RWD and people with snow in winter can't drive them. Stodgey!
Reliable though. I personally like the styling of the old taurus better (we have a 2002 wagon). The new taurus and taurus x - (old 500 and freestyle) are too big. And they are $$.
Supposedly the mazda3 from europe is coming here as the focus replacement as their small car entry.
I still can't believe Ford never even thought about making a turbocharged AWD Focus RS to trade on its rally heritage like Subaru did with the WRX. Subaru's cachet in this country has increased tremendously since they brought the WRX to the North American market, and they have brought a lot of buyers into their ranks that have since moved up to Legacy GTs. Ford missed a golden opportunity to get their hooks into a new, young customer base.
Are you referring to the Euro Focus RS? If so, I wasnt impressed with its numbers it posted in EVO magazine (6.3 0-60, 14.80 1/4 mile). I actually kinda liked the SVT Focus (the 2 door version only), it handled good and had some zing, but obviously not on the level of turbo cars. What Ford needs to do is get some solid, powerful, RWD cars on the market (ala 300C, etc). Consumers have shown that theyre interested in RWD vehicles, especially American ones with a historic nameplate like the Mustang, 300 series, Camaro, Challenger, etc. Just my .02.
Some consumers have shown they're interested in RWD. But look what the 20s-set is buying or "creating" with parts swaps: FWD or AWD cars with small, high-strung and/or turbocharged engines. The SVT was a handler, but the engine didn't quite have the pep to make an impact on in this market. Keep in mind that the Euro-market Focus RS only produced 210HP and was FWD only. It wouldn't have taken much engine tweaking to increase the output to WRX-level competition, and the chassis is already set up for an AWD driveline per FIA homologation requirements. They missed an opportunity to give the WRX some domestic competition when the WRX first came to this market and to get young buyers into the Ford fold.
To be fair though, everybody had underestimated the market demand for rally-based vehicles in North America. The success of the WRX here took everyone by surprise, even Subaru. For the 2002 model year (the first year in our market), they outsold their North American sales projection four-fold. The only way they could meet demand was to divert much of Australia's allocated production run to the North American market. (That didn't make Australians happy, but they'd already had the WRX for 8 years so too bad.) I guess they didn't realize that video games had already done a lot of the WRX's marketing for them.
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