http://carsguide.news.com.au/news/st...E21822,00.html
Bound for foreign Territory
Gordon Lomas
18dec04
FORD is exploring the possibility of the Territory going into left-hand-drive markets.
Bosses in Detroit are delighted with the response to the first six months of sales with the Aussie-bred and built Territory now looking for homes in key international markets.
Ford Australia president, Tom Gorman, said the chance of the Territory reaching other markets had been discussed but it was a complex issue that needed two-way support and was only at discussion stage.
"We would like to see the Territory exported elsewhere but it is not going to be easy," Gorman said.
"We already go to New Zealand but going into left-hand-drive markets, for example, would mean a lot more effort and involvement."
Appealing to a broader Ford family would almost certainly mean the Territory would need a diesel powerplant.
Gorman also warned that there was a big difference with someone purely expressing an interest in a product and putting that idea into production.
"The distance between interest and actual opportunity can be a long way to travel.
"To move from interest to pulling a program in place in terms of engineering dollars is a long way to go...we're talking left-hand-drive here."
Ford is known to be nearing a date when it will announce plans to export the rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive Territory to South Africa.
"We want to do it and we're getting close with our friends in South Africa," Gorman said.
"We're trying to co-ordinate what we both want to say."
Expanding the Territory family with new variants would be known after detailed studies were conducted by Ford in the first quarter of 2005.
On the agenda was a performance FPV version, a diesel and an off-road pack with a higher ride height.
"All three would be great additions but what we have to do is decide what is going to drive incremental bang-for-your bucks," Gorman said.
"I think there's an argument for each one of them but in the first quarter of next year we will have some data on our buyer/rejector studies.
"Why people have rejected the Territory might drive what we will do with another version."
The Territory recently scooped the pool in The Courier-Mail's Car of the Year awards when it won the family class (rear-wheel-drive), recreational vehicle (all-wheel-drive) before the rear-drive took the big gong, the overall Queensland Car of the Year.
It starts from $38,990 in TX rear-drive configuration and rises to $42,990 for the base model all-wheel-drive wagon.
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