No, they're too small. Even the Granada and Scorpio were small by American standards- a Mondeo here is classed as a family car, but the Five Hundred is the American idea of a family car.Originally Posted by jediali
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No, they're too small. Even the Granada and Scorpio were small by American standards- a Mondeo here is classed as a family car, but the Five Hundred is the American idea of a family car.
For Great Justice.
that is a hell of a lot of money to be losing. couple this to years of inefficiency and loss-making and, as scary as the prospect may seem, it's looking increasingly likely that something will go wrong with Ford Auto Group.
If they get the Interceptor concept out into the public domain, price it well and make sure it's a decent car, they'll have a hit similar to the Chrysler 300c - and no matter what you say about that car it was popular and manage to establish Chrysler as a decent brand name in the eyes of the public again. When the 500 first launched i remembered thinking it was an incredibly bland car - ditto the Freestyle. and these cars were meant to be the benchmark on which Ford would launch it's 17th (or thereabouts) comeback? it just wasn't gonna happen.
How's sales of the Ford Edge Travelling, does anyone know?
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Apparently Ford-NA have mortgaged most of their assets .. including the blue oval badge itself!
For Great Justice.
It's a monopoly play if ever i've seen one - let's hope they don't land on the Mayfair hotel
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does that mean they might lose the ability to use their badge
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Bringing their products in from Europe isnt as simple as it sounds, remember theres the UAW they'd need to get around. That basically means theyre stuck building whatever they need in the US, which currently means retooling everything to suite.
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Actually, I wouldn't mind having Ford go bankrupt because I never liked the company. Ditto for GM. They wallow in their success thinking they're untouchable and then they get screwed over quickly because of that.
Bringing over the products from Europe is difficult because they're RHD and you need to convert it. However, if they bothered to create a unified platform in the first place where it's easy to qualify crash tests for many different markets and allow for left and right HD, they'd be able to port products from all over the place as they see fit. The same problem is going for GM and large RWD vehicles for North America. The platforms from Holden wouldn't allow it because LHD wasn't engineered into the platform.
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If Ford and/or GM go down, the economy will turn into an absolute disaster. I'd rather not see either of them go down, for the country's sake.
*Cue British remark about America sucking and how we deserve it.
Rockefella says:
pat's sister is hawt
David Fiset says:
so is mine
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do want
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why would that be? Will there be a drop in the absolute number of cars sold?
"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." Douglas Adams
Super Moderator
The auto industry is a massive part of America's economy. If Ford and GM fall under, massive amounts of jobs will be lost, and the chunk of the GDP that FoMoCo and General Motors held will no longer exist. The trade deficit is bad as it is; making it worse would be no help.
Overall, it'd be a disaster.
Rockefella says:
pat's sister is hawt
David Fiset says:
so is mine
David Fiset says:
do want
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but there are other producers within the USA...imports need not be necessary...
"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." Douglas Adams
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All that would be left is Daimler Chrysler (as a major producer), if that's what you're referring to.
Rockefella says:
pat's sister is hawt
David Fiset says:
so is mine
David Fiset says:
do want
Supporting Member
honda, bmw, toyota are all having factories.
I did a little bit of digging, found a 2003 report on the economic contribution of the car manufacturing sector (written by representatives from the car industry and from experience I know that when something needs to be proven figures can all be pointed to the same direction.
so in 2002 total employment in the car production and parts sector was 912000 and by linking all sorts of upstream and downstream activities to car production the figure rose to 13.2 mln people. Out of a total registered workforce of 135 mln people.
Furthermore the value of the car output in 2002 was roughly 360 bln US$. Compare that with a GDP of 12455 bln dollar in 2005, then the contribution to GDP is less than 3%.
Of course for those directly affected it will spell disaster, but that the total US economy will collapse looks highly unlikely to me.
what I also found interesting was that out of the roughly 12 mln vehicles produced in 2002, 7mln were light trucks and 5 mln were cars.....
and here is the link to the report
http://www.cargroup.org/pdfs/Alliance-Final.pdf
Last edited by henk4; 01-26-2007 at 10:22 AM.
"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." Douglas Adams
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Continental European drivers, drive LHD cars...
I understand the concern European Fords not being big enough, but what they could do instread is base American Fords in European platforms, which would mean they would save a lot of money by not having to develop too many platforms. Still GM will be importing European Opels as Saturns in the near future, so I don't see why this couldn't be done with Fords.
Furthermore the Mondeo isn't that small. The 4-door saloon is 473cm long. By comparison the Fusion is 482cm long. And imagine if instead of selling the Freestar they sold the S-Max...
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
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I agree. Inefficient management is killing Ford.
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