Did Alan Mulally really save Ford?
All the evidence points to yes; Mulally transformed Ford from a disparate organization of fiefdoms into a coherent whole, and the results saved the company from collapsing under its own weight. But after reading Bryce Hoffman’s take on Ford’s recent history, its plausible to revisit the question with lingering doubt.
Hoffman’s narrative asks you to consider 20th Century Ford as an immensely important company that left an indelible mark on American society. While this is true in some form, he avoids sugar coating the issues that plagued the automaker throughout the 20th century, opting to portray the company as a much a victim of its own failure as its success. American Icon makes it abundantly clear how a big corporation like Ford can fail or succeed based on the people at the top. After all, a group of individuals does not necessarily make a team.
The 2005 Ford Focus : Corporate dysfunction meant this model was never going to be sold in the U.S.
Aside from the broad history of the Dearborn automaker, Hoffman’s book almost reads as if he was a therapist that just happened to be treating all of Ford’s top executives from 2006 to 2011. This can likely be credited to his pedigree as a journalist who had already been covering the Big Three for quite some time. It also helps that he had access to all the top brass at Ford, because there are exhaustive accounts of very specific meetings and events that contain quite a bit of drama, most notably during Ford’s attempt to recruit Mulally, which is one of the most interesting portions of the book.
The 3rd generation Ford Mondeo could have likely served as a nice replacement for the Taurus.
Hoffman paints a clear picture of the systemic issues that almost destroyed Ford, and almost all of them are due to a highly dysfunctional structure that did not encourage or reward cooperation. Ford wasn’t struggling because they lacked a substantial dealer network or were absent from important markets; it was more a result of a bureaucracy where executives could focus on their respective territory without any incentive to share their experiences with officials in other regions. Saddled with factionalism, a division of the automaker could operate successfully in one region but poorly in another. If Ford provided a service instead of selling a physical product, this likely wouldn’t have mattered much. But failing to properly bring a vehicle competitive in one market to a region where it could do equally as well – in addition to not developing competitive vehicles at all – clearly spelled doom for the automaker.
The 2008 Ford Focus, built only for North America.
The hero of the story is, without a doubt, Alan Mulally. He came in and ended the petty squabbling taking place in the Glass House. But there were several individuals working to save Ford before he was hired that arguably made calls that were just as important, if not more so. The chief financial officer, Don Leclair, and treasurer Anne Petach put details of a plan together that would allow Ford to borrow over $20 billion by putting all its assets on the line, as both saw warnings that a recession was imminent. Ultimately they were correct, and the money Ford secured was immensely important to keeping Ford afloat without going bankrupt. None of Mulally’s planning would have mattered if there were no funds to invest in new products, and the financial duo really hit a home run with their gutsy idea. The decision to utilize assets from Mazda and Volvo was another solid decision which is still producing dividends for the company, but it doesn’t get mentioned as much as it should have.
The third generation Ford Focus was proof positive of the new “One Ford” philosophy espoused by Mulally.
American Icon tells the story of Fords downfall and revival largely through the eyes of the top brass that lived to tell the tale. This is the greatest strength of the book, and its greatest weakness. Since a car company relies on its product, there is precious little talk about vehicle development, either from before or after Mulally arrived. Including a picture of how a particular model was developed and how those decisions ultimately impacted the company would have given the book a nice reprieve from the simple recounting of board meetings and discussions, no matter how interesting or substantive the events. Regardless, American Icon is an entertaining read with lots of juicy tidbits for anyone interested in recent automotive history, or a more general interest in business.
Notable Details:
- Jacques Nasser wasn’t entirely responsible for all of Ford’s problems in 2006, but you can trace back a lot of the issues plaguing the company to his reign. Bill Ford Jr. tried and failed to turn the company around largely because of how his predecessors left things. For example, when Bill Ford learned that Europe was getting a new Focus while the American market was not, the only explanation he got was that it didn’t work out because the product cycles didn’t sync up, which was obviously not the full story.
- In relation to the above factoid, the culture of dysfunction was so strong that the American division developed a safety technology and never shared it with any other region, while Ford of Europe purposely designed their vehicles in a way that ensured they could never be certified for sale in the United States. Hoffman does not give any more detail than these two anecdotes, so its unclear what tech or cars were being talked about.
- There was a Mercury variant of the Ford Flex that never saw the light of day. I suspect there were more concepts and designs for future Mercury vehicles that were never produced, but that is the only model specifically mentioned.
- Speaking of brands, Mercury was killed to focus on Lincoln, which was only saved when Jim Farley and Mark Fields asked Mulally to give them a shot at reviving it. Mulally wanted to kill or sell every brand except the blue oval from day one.
- Geely initially gave off a bad impression when they met with Ford regarding Volvo, but on the second go around they were successful in convincing Ford to sell them the company, despite the fact that they barely had the cash to do so. Ford also thought other potential suitors just wanted to chop the company up instead of fixing the Swedish automaker, which influenced their decision.
- Ford had developed the EcoBoost technology in 2002, but executives didn’t think consumers would buy cars equipped with the engines, so they nixed the idea.
- Mulally was flabbergasted that the Taurus name was eliminated, and didn’t buy that it was a tainted moniker. He wanted to rebadge the Fusion as the Taurus, but met resistance from product planners since the new car was selling well and getting positive buzz. They decided to rename the Five Hundred instead since it was selling poorly and perceived as boring.
Saved it??? More like wrecked it. No mercury, no real Lincoln’s, no panther cars no rear wheel drive big cars. We have Mazda and Volvo derivatives and turn is, nothing I like at all. At least Chrysler still makes nice looking and v8 rear wheel drive car.. Chrysler has the better products by far. Sorry but Ford cars are foreign and ugly and if anything mullaly ruined Ford. And.Lincolnry cars are the sorriest. Luxury cares made
This sounds like an objective analysis.
Warren, your comment is completely out of touch with reality. Though, at least it gave me lolz.
Yeah, saved it. By building 21st century cars in North America.
Unfortunately, that’s usually lost on those people who really want their cars to stay in the 1990’s. Or earlier. Way earlier.
And said people are usually not smart enough to realize that following that policy would put the company in the tank even faster, because most auto buyers out there have absolutely no interest in rear wheel drive big cars, or Panthers, or four wheeled dinosaurs with the Lincoln badge on them.
Technology has moved on, as have customer tastes.
Yes, saved it.
The alternative was death. I was there when Mulally came aboard (I actually met him his first day on the job. He came through the employee cafeteria at WHQ and introduced himself to the people at each individual table, shook our hands, and asked what we did.), and while the other important pieces of the puzzle had already been assembled-financing, Way Forward plan-Mulally cut through the executive bullshit and noticeably changed the culture of an organization that we had previously referred to, crudely, as dogs pissing on trees. Even with LeClair’s money and Fields’ Way Forward plan (renamed after he’d called it Moving Forward. Oops, that was Toyota’s slogan at the time!), without Mulally to clean house on the 11th and 12th Floors, those other things would not have been enough.
When Mulally came on board, Ford was seriously in the shit, to the extent that some of us figured we were going down first. I saw some of those financials when they were released, and trust me, the day Ford announced they were cutting the dividends and announced it had lost a couple billion dollars… That was not a good or enjoyable day at WHQ, and some of us felt like they’d literally started to cut off the lights.
No Mercury? Big deal. Mercury was nothing more than a trim line anyway. No Panthers? Not when Nasser cut the budgets for any updates to the platform and consumer preferences were killing their sales. No big rear-drive cars? Oh well. Better to have a car company than not. I saw a lot of good people who had bled Ford Blue get walked out like they were nothing. I’m happy to see Ford making enough money that such a thing doesn’t need to happen again. And my Fiesta ST is a fantastic car!
by the way, they did start cutting off the lights. in the pedestrian tunnels (the utility tunnels which connect PDC, P&A, Dyno, and Bldgs. 1, 3, 4, and 5) only had every third light on for a few years. I used to joke with people that I expected demons to burst out of the doors on the dividing wall all DooM-like.
The market doesn’t want a 2006 Mercury Grand Marquis. Before Mulally, look what Ford had- the F-Series, commercial vans, and that’s about it. Their minivans were laughable, the Taurus made vanilla ice cream look like a wild taste, and the Focus was…. I don’t know what it was!
Today, Ford makes reliable, nice, and dare I say it, premium, vehicles. Mulally has done a lot to help the company in my mind.
I think Ford seems to have a premium feel in their vehicles now too. All the new ones I’ve driven are quiet, composed, and very solid feeling. But I also think that had started prior to Mulally. Edge, Fusion, even the 2004 F-150. Things have improved quite a bit from there though.
The Grand Marquis loyalists are either too old to drive or passed on. Today’s seniors like CUV’s and there are tons of Escapes and Explorers in retirement villages. Along with compacts.
Taxi companys have Camrys, Fusions and moved on from the eldery Vics. Cops love Explorer PI’s, more room and utility.
The old adge “you can sell a young person’s car to an older one, but not a old folks’ car to a young one” is reason Panthers are gone.
There is not more room in a Interceptor Utility than in a Crown Vic Police Interceptor.
Can’t say I’ve seen any Fusion Taxis and only one or two Camrys. Around here it is Prius and a few Escape Hybrids.
“There is not more room in a Interceptor Utility than in a Crown Vic Police Interceptor.”
Isn’t there?
Well the “cargo area” is bigger than the trunk but of course it is open and not as secure of a place to store weapons.
As far as the driver goes they are pretty close with the key dimensions being fractions of inches of difference that yes the Utility wins but not enough to really matter and in general it feels more cramped than the old CV.
Agreed. The younger people who drive Panthers usually drive them because of their low cost. Catering to the budget used car market doesn’t help Ford!
I read a review somewhere on the later Grand Marquis- whoever did the review said that it was the best 1980s car that you can buy today. That pretty much sums it up- the Panthers are from a time that isn’t anymore.
Mercury had no reason to exist. there wasn’t a single Mercury vehicle which wasn’t a lightly badge-engineered Ford. The Milan was a Fusion with different headlights, grille, and taillights. The Montego/Sable was a Five Hundred/Taurus with different headlights, grille, and taillights. and so on.
Mercury was useless.
Mercury has better interior not at a too premium price. Without Mercury, Ford interior is still very Ford.
It’s a bit incongruous to speak of Mercury in the present tense when they’ve been gone 5 years now. In my experience the Ford Titanium trims are quite the worthy successor to Mercury. (Hey, maybe the metallic naming was intentional?)
nope. The interiors of Mercury vehicles were the same as the Fords they were derived from. You know not what you are talking about. The Mariner’s interior was no different from the Escape’s. The Milan’s interior was no different from the Fusion’s.
They were the same basic interiors BUT there were minor trim differences like fabrics and dash appliques that did make for a distinctive look. Compare, say, the 08-09 Sable interior with the related Taurus: the Taurus had rather tacky fake woodgrain, the Sable had a more attractive look. However, everyone who has said Mercury was basically a trim level is absolutely correct: the only differences are minor interior and exterior trim.
Although the new Titanium Fords are less distinguished externally vis-a-vis the way Mercuries were, they are more differentiated in terms of feature content. They are very much worthy successors. Hell, rename them to Mercury.
Our 1993 Sable GS interior was only very slightly upgraded from the Taurus GL interior. Functionally, it was really not meaningfully different. What did the Sable have the Taurus didn’t? Passenger side airbag, a light bar in front, and cornering lamps, plus slightly snazzier styling. Alloy wheels might have been standard, but I’m not sure. That’s about it.
You have to go back to about 1955-1960 to find some real differentiation between Ford and Mercury in size, appearance, trim, and features. Not so coincidentally, this was the period when Ford was attempting to match GM division for division. (Think of the Edsel.) That didn’t last long! Then Mercury went back to just being a tarted-up Ford.
@ David, when the Taurus and Sable were introduced they shared no exterior sheet metal, it was only the windshield, front door glass and the door structure but not the skin. They even had unique dashes. Even the Ovoid Taurbles didn’t share many exterior components.
When the Aero Panthers were introduced they only shared the same windshield, and front doors. Inside they had unique dashes as well.
So there was significant differentiation well into the 90’s between some of the Fords and Mercurys.
The Mercurys were definitely distinct from Fords on the outside well into the ’00s, but the powertrains were identical. What interior differences did exist were not enough to distract buyers from the fact that they were driving a gussied-up Ford.
Ford’s Titanium trimmed cars replaced Mercury. The brand was for old folks living in the 1950’s
Wow, just by changing some names, this could be me talking about Chrysler in the 1980s and 90’s: “Lee Iaccoca wrecked it. No Plymouth, no real Imperials, no rear wheel drive big cars. We have Mitsubishi and K-car derivatives, nothing I like at all.”
Despite taking the company in a direction that didn’t appeal to me (aside from their pickup trucks), it was obviously a hit with the car buying public at the time.
The Panther cars HAD to go because there was no way to keep them in production and comply with CAFE standards and with low sales overall of the Town Car and Crown Vic’s they’d actually lose money by selling them.
That’s how it works when complying with CAFE and EPA standards.
You can thank the FEDS for that.
Ford has for years been on a razor’s edge with CAFE standards because they sold so many big V8 powered trucks so they had to make some tough choices.
The real losers in all that was law enforcement and the taxpayer because those Crown Vics were low maintenance and T O U G H.
I agree that even now there are no real Lincolns. Every Lincoln model is nice but……. Bleh…….
“Chrysler has the better products”…. That’s what we call crazy talk.
Sorry but you’ve got it wrong concerning CAFE. Trucks have absolutely no bearing on the subject of meeting CAFE with your cars. They are counted completely separate. Because they didn’t sell a ton of them and they had a fairly large footprint the Panthers didn’t have a large impact on their car CAFE. If they wanted to up the fuel economy they had a couple of power trains that would have helped, though they likely would have hurt the appeal of the vehicle to fleet buyers.
So no they would not have lost money by keeping selling them they were cash cows. The reason that they went away was they didn’t want to spend the money to equip them with stability control which was required on all light duty vehicles for 2012.
Warren,
There was so much wrong with Ford that it was likely the first company to go into bankruptcy. The prudent move to hire Mulallywas possibly the ONLY way this company could have been turned around; the book details how underlings were sent to upper management meetings; Mulally was furious. He dictated the management would attend or else; Mulally also was flabbergasted how no one dared to point out problems with vehicles. The old way measured “success” by never bringing up issues with products. No issues means we are doing well!
The mortgaging of assets was critical There is a humorous tale of how GM learned what Ford had done and then tried to do it for themselves. They waited too long and all heck broke loose.
Critical here was the One Ford aspect and this company was dragged into streamlining development so a product made anywhere could be sold anywhere.
Killing Mercury was not dumb. Ford actually replaced Mercury with Ford moving the company upscale in pricing and left the old Ford to the dust bin. Mercury had no place left. Ford’s transaction pricing is near best in the industry and that could not have been done keeping Ford as the lowball and Mercury as whatever it was.
There was the story about the new “Edge” which was panned by Consumer Reports because it did not have a power liftgate option. Mulally went nuts and a power liftgate was developed.
Back in 2006-8 it was claimed that Ford was burning through cash like crazy and the so-called pundits were not giving Ford any hope of recovery. While GM was basically driving itself into taxpayer cash, Ford’s burn rate was all due to the development of Ecoboost (which had been called TwinForce). That development of Ecoboost turned out to be so gigantic that Ford still leads in engines over its domestic competition and risked it all on putting this in trucks to show its durability; this same scenario would later be used to showcase aluminum mass production. Now Ford is going into second generation ecoboost while GM is still trying to figure out which end of a sparkplug to stick in the head.
We had a fairly nice RWD Ford but its gone thanks to Mulally the Chrysler effort is a very poor and ugly substitute.
if you’re talking about the Falcon, it’s gone because it was a region-specific architecture which couldn’t be adapted to left-hand drive without a significant and costly redesign. It might have been “nice” but it was costly to build and couldn’t be sold anywhere but AUS and NZ.
Also, the Falcon architecture dates back to the 1960s from when the Falcon was introduced in Australia, itself based on the American Ford Falcon of the same vintage. They’ve updated it, reskinned it, put new guts under the hood, but at its core it’s a 50-year-old platform. You’re right, at this point it’s too far gone and too costly to make business sense, especially under One Ford.
I still think had it come to North America with the AU it could have worked in both markets, it may have had the footprint of the 66 Falcon but it was still far more advanced and likely(given the conditions it was engineered to stand up to) equally as rugged as the Panther was. Opponents to the notion look at the failure of the GTO and G8 as undisputed proof it couldn’t work, but those were both enthusiast cars that were imported, the jury is out on whether or not it could have worked with local manufacture as far as I’m concerned. Fast forward a few years and an all new global platform could have replaced it by now, rather than sticking with the ever more long in tooth, ever more nip tucked, perpetual failure D3 platform masquerading around as a “full size” successor.
Matt, you’re right. I know it would have been expensive to develop in LHD but it was a huge missed opportunity. The Falcon was just as durable as the Crown Vic, just as popular with police and taxi companies, had better handling, better engines, by 2002 a MUCH better interior, and you’re right… It could have lead to a new global RWD platform. But Ford prioritised the needs of the Mustang as well as its investment in D3.
Seeing as it was so overhauled in 1989 and again in 1998, I really do wonder how much old componentry was leftover and how much that would have affected development costs. The argument there was little life in the platform left proved to be wrong: Ford engineered a turbo six and a turbo four for it, and overhauled it again with the FG. No, there was no precedent for such an “old” platform to be engineered for a different market but still…
I had no idea the recent Australian Falcons were still based on the old Falcon platform – surely they’d have revamped it sometime since 1960!
I don’t get why Ford couldn’t come up with a modern scalable RWD platform that could underlie the Mustang, a RWD Lincoln 3- and 5-series competitor, and a fairly large Ford sedan aimed at fleet markets about the size of a Charger but with better space utilization and bigger windows, and maybe even some sort of truck or van – all vehicles that would have worldwide appeal.
Wishful thinking, but who would really buy? Fans of old RWD cars simply buy vintage cars, and look at the GTO/G8 as ‘bars of soap’.
Ford still has the Mustang, and that is fine. German makes are selling more and more AWD cars, and not the ‘RWD purist’ ones. Audi is successful and they are all based on FWD platforms, and buyers could not care less.
Cadillac is betting on RWD, but most new CT5’s sold will probably have AWD. So, why bohter with “pure RWD sedans” that fans want to “see”, but paying buyers shun? Just sell AWD then I say.
With each major generational change, so many components were replaced that I feel it is a bit disingenuous to say it is a 50 year old platform even if it never had a clean-sheet redesign.
JZ is right though: it would have been too costly to engineer and Ford Global seemingly never entertained the idea, even years ago.
No they had considered it heavily and were actually working on a successor to the Falcon and Panther platforms. Cutting that program was the second thing Mullaly did when he took controls, right after insisting that the Taurus name be kept.
Well, if they don’t sell and make $$, they go bye bye. And aren’t Camrys now #1 car in Oz? The Falcon was branded as “for bogans” anyway. Look that up.
No, the Camry has always* sold in smaller numbers than the Commodore, and also the Falcon before its recent decline. The largest-selling cars now are the Corolla and Mazda3, only slightly ahead of pickups like the Ranger or Toyota Hilux.
* Less the odd month perhaps
Interesting, and makes a lot of good points, especially the part about who actually got the loan together that kept Ford from going bankrupt/needing a government bailout.
I’ve also long suspected that Ford U.S. were firm believers in the “not invented here” …..philosophy? This write-up makes it sound as though ALL the “branches” of Ford, both those in the U.S. (Ford, Mercury, Lincoln) and those outside the U.S. had “no lost love” for the other branches. And all this time I figured that only GM suffered from this….affliction?
But, a couple of points: the 1st generation Mondeo had too small a back seat so I really doubt that by the 2nd or 3rd generation the car had gotten big enough to replace the Taurus. If anything, they should have used the styling with the necessary size/scale adjustments, instead of the infamous “jellybean” or “4 wheeled catfish” look they went with.
I always thought that the reason why the U.S. did not get the revised/2nd generation Focus the rest of the world got was due to money….what the U.S. got was cheaper to produce and lent itself to further de-contenting.
As far as Eco-boost “sitting on a shelf” for nearly 10-12 years, again, money issues. And it is possible consumers would NOT have bought it. When gas was expensive, those trucks that introduced the concept needed a fuel saving feature and the take rate was about 50%….EXCEEDING Ford’s anticipated numbers. But with gas prices falling, I would think the take rate has fallen, though it is “held up” by the addition of more Eco-boost engine choices. BTW, anecdotal evidence suggests Eco-boost is not as fuel efficient as advertised, it will be interesting to see the long range reliability of these engines.
I don’t know about Ford’s turbocharged engines. However, my 2013 Cadillac ATS with the turbo 4 would give me about 29 MPG on the highway. My 2014 CTS with a V6 (not turbocharged) gets about 1 MPG less. The CTS is bigger and should get less anyway. Also, the V6 is not tuned for premium.
Turbo cars sre unreliable and expensive. And the 300 Chrysler is way nicer than a Taurus or new Lincoln. Fords are basically Volvo and Mazda cars and their trucks are ugly and unreliable and. Hard to work on. And most are made outside the us
Lot of misinformation here.
>”Turbo cars sre [sic] unreliable”
Torture tests and millions of miles of daily use say otherwise.
>…”and expensive.”
As has been demonstrated not two days ago, the cost of cars has decreased 25% in the past 45+ years.
>”And the 300 Chrysler is way nicer than a Taurus or new Lincoln.”
Besides this being subjective, the Taurus doesn’t compete with the 300. Lincoln…needs some improvement; the Chrysler does outclass it in some ways.
>”Fords are basically Volvo and Mazda cars”
Overlooking the fact that Ford sold its stake in both companies in 2010, what is inherently wrong with cars sharing platforms? The B3, C1, CD3, D3 and D4 platforms have been incredibly successful for all companies involved.
>”and their trucks are ugly and unreliable and. Hard [sic] to work on.”
Looks are subjective, and while it may not be as handsome as the Ram, the F-Series has its fans. The EcoBoost engines, while maybe not as dead-set reliable, have ended up being not just more efficient, but more popular for most truck buyers, and the Super Duty isn’t the most popular fleet vehicle just because it comes out as the cheapest. There’s a reason most fleets use newer vehicles: fewer repairs are needed for modern drivetrains.
>”And most are made outside the us [sic]”
Why is that an issue? The parts of every car, regardless of its final point of assembly, are sourced from all over the globe.
Turbos are in use on millions of diesel trucks around the world and have been since the 50s its very old,very well proven technology.
And tractors! I can’t believe I forgot to mention turbodiesel tractors! If that’s not tortuous use, I don’t know what is.
the difference is diesel engines are more or less immune to detonation, so they’ve been able to use high-pressure turbocharging for a long time. it’s only been since petrol engines have adopted direct injection that they’ve been able to follow suit. the evaporation of fuel in-cylinder provides a charge cooling effect which allows turbo gas engines to crank up the boost.
jz beat me to it. Diesel and gas turbocharging are two quite different things; gas is much trickier. Diesels just love lots of boost; the more the merrier, because of the way diesel burns (slowly) and at lower temps. Gasoline engines not so much so; they have to be coddled along with the boost.
And, due to higher average, not peak, EGT (exhaust gas temperatures, sometimes expressed as turbine inlet temperature), gasoline engine turbos have historically much shorter lifespan than on diesels.
I had a 1985 Nissan 300ZX Turbo back in the day. I was the second owner – good friends bought it new. Collectively we put 90,000 miles on it over many years and never had a bit of trouble with the turbocharger. And this was 30 years ago technology. I’ve heard of some issues with early Volvo turbochargers but overall I think the technology has been tried and tested and is pretty bullet proof today.
Hmm, those ‘nicer’ 300’s are made outside the US, remember?
Not the turbocharger – it was a Garrett made in Ohio.
Warren,
Turbos are not unreliable – yes, there was a coking problem in the 1980’s – but that is not a problem anymore. I guess you didn’t bother to see the durability tests that Ford did before launching EC in trucks. You were probably still looking for your pacifier.
Expensive? That’s all relative – consumers are paying extra WHEN THEY WANT that engine. It is free market, baby. And the consumers are shelling out the dollars for them. Expensive to idiots is not the same as value driven to intelligent people.
Trucks are highly reliable. I guess being number one for forty years or more doesn’t count. And Ford is handily blowing the doors off Chevrolet which is selling its 1999 full-sized truck as something new in 2016! Things are so bad at GM that their inbred sycophants have to add Chevrolet and GMC truck sales to try to get equal with Ford. Meanwhile these same blivetheads are trying to tell us the Chevrolet and GMC are different! Talk about talking out of both sides of their mouths.
The 300 is an old car and is not nicer than anything in its class – it is old school – the same idiots who advocate for rear wheel drive V-8 everything are the same idiots who don’t realize CAFE standards go to 50 mpgs in a decade. You cannot build old products like the 300 and expect to make CAFE.
Fiesta and Focus are not Mazda products. Fusion is so different now that there is only M in its lineage, not Mazda.
I’d like to remind Warren that until GM which killed every brand it bought in the 1990’s, Ford saved Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, and Volvo. And knowledge gained in those turnarounds helped Ford with the new F-150.
And Warren, the company that the taxpayers saved that is producing 70% of its garbage overseas is not Ford. It is GM! And since Ford was not saved by taxpayers, they are free to build wherever they want.
Howard,
I think the 3rd generation Mondeo could have worked just fine on our side of the pond. The 190.7″ length and 112.2″ wheelbase nearly match that of the first generation Fusion, which measures in at 190.2″ and 107.4″, respectively. I’d imagine that translated into similar interior dimensions as well.
I’ve read conflicting reports about the US-only second gen Focus, with some sources (anecdotal) saying that it would have cost less to just federalize the international Focus instead of creating a different version based mainly off the first gen. Since the Mazda 3 and Volvo S40 were sold in the United States and shared the same platform as the Euro-Focus, I think either 1) Ford of Europe sabotaged efforts to have it sold in America (see also the Mondeo) or 2) Ford just made a bad call.
The way Hoffman writes it, it was mainly the top brass that shelved the EcoBoost. However, I think they were probably right, not many customers would have bought it until gas prices shot up. As far as reliability, the EcoBoost 3.5 has been around since 2011 and had been fine, so I wouldn’t worry about reliability.
You make valid points so I’ll address them:
The 1st generation Mondeo was a “decent-sized” car, but all the car magazines mentioned that the rear seat room was in-adequate. In fact, the shorter Focus had a bigger back seat. Making the car longer MIGHT NOT have gotten the necessary increase in space that was needed. The Mondeo had (or at least the 1st generation had) lackluster packaging.
I would think that using the same “up-dated” parts on both sides of the Atlantic would be cost effective….but what do I know? I just remember it being reported (perhaps not really remembered) that what the U.S. did get was (probably) cheaper.
Basically, it looks like we got the bumpers of the 2005 on Euro Focus, but nothing else….certainly NOT the nice dashboard.
Finally, the Eco-boost system has gotten a lot of complaints. Take a look at the website Car Complaints.com
the problem in the US with the Contour (Mondeo) is the same problem with trying to use dollar coins. if you don’t take the “old way” out of circulation, people will still just use that instead of moving to the “new way.”
The 3rd Gen Mondeo absolutely would have worked here. Trouble wasn’t the car itself (it was actually a brilliant car both inside and out, as I saw and felt myself). It was that the decisions and failures of the 1990s made Ford gunshy about globalization until Mulally came aboard.
Make no mistake, Mulally was not the first one to think of global platforms. He wasn’t even the first one at Ford to think of global platforms. Ford was moving rapidly toward globalization in the early 1990s. Mondeo/Contour-Mystique was the first offspring of that program (CDW-27 was C/D size WORLD car, after all). Trouble was, Contour-Mystique were a flop here, while Mondeo went on to be a great success in Europe. Likewise, DEW-98 (D size Executive World car,) saw only moderate success as Lincoln LS, even less as the final Thunderbird, and Europe only saw it as Jaguars.
The trouble was that, for the first real go at globalization, Ford decided that Ford of Europe would handle B, C, and C/D car development, while Ford North America would handle large cars and trucks. So, North America got a car designed by Europeans that was great for Europe but didn’t hit the mark in the U.S.. Likewise, the DEW-98 cars were only a good fit for Europe in Jaguar guise. By the time the Europeans had designed the first Focus, the Americans decided they needed to revise the car to avoid another CDW-27 disaster. Thus, globalization went down the toilet for the time being. While our first Foci looked similar, very little of them were actually interchangeable because Ford NA had redesigned so much of the car.
CDW-27 cost the better part of $6 Billion to bring to fruition, and Ford lost their asses on it in the U.S.. DEW-98 cost a small metric asswad of money to develop, as well. When Contour-Mystique hit the market, Ford priced them too high, trying to make up some of the development costs. Buyers walked into a Ford showroom and saw a larger Taurus with a proper-sized back seat for not much more money than a Contour, and the choice was obvious (and obviously not Contour). It didn’t help that the bulk of Contour-Mystiques were shit cars, too (pretty much the Mexican ones were shit and suffered from bad engineering and bad build quality, the Kansas City ones were less shit and only suffered from bad engineering).
So CDW-27 cars flopped in the U.S., but Ford North America was printing money selling Explorers and F-150s. Rather than update CDW-27 in the U.S., they just stopped selling cars in that market segment entirely for six years. 3rd Gen Mondeo went on sale for 2007, and Mulally came to Ford October 2006. By then, Fusion had hit the market, and I expect that Fusion was designed in North America by Americans because they felt like they’d been burned by Europe on Mondeo (3rd Gen Mondeo still used CDW-27) already. Of course, by then Mondeo had become pretty much the same car (functionally) as the Fusion North America designed.
Under Mulally, they rethought how they developed global platforms. The global Focus had development work being done on both sides of the pond. The idea under Mulally was not to make one car that could be sold globally per se. The idea was to make 80 percent of a car that could be sold globally, then graft on whatever the local preferences are to finish it. Even with global Fiesta, which was the first Mulally-era global platform and had to be reworked to make global part-way through develpment, things like seats and features get reworked depending upon region. For instance, American Fiestas get larger seats than do their global counterparts (which is why Americans complain so much about the Recaro seats in the Fiesta ST-they’re not American-sized and are the same seats globally). India gets the same platform, but with simpler sheetmetal and more spartan interiors under the Figo nameplate.
tl;dr: You’re right, the 3rd Gen Mondeo was a great car and absolutely would have worked here. Given the state of Ford at that point, though, it would have never happened.
Like I said above, that was Mulally’s strength and how he saved Ford: He cut through the 11th and 12th Floor bullshit and fixed the corporate culture. He stopped the dogs pissing on trees and protecting their territory and got them focused on Ford or out the door.
Wow, thanks for the input xequar. You seem to have a very interesting insider experience at Ford. You should consider writing about your career on the site!
It’s oversimplifying a little to say that the Contour was a Mondeo. When I traveled to Europe in 1998, it took me a second to realize what looked different about the Mondeo vs. the Contour, but the Mondeo had a different roofline in the rear that allowed for additional room in the back seat that the US market was craving. I can’t understand why, but Ford NA added one of the Contour’s Achilles Heels when it was federalized. When reviews and owner feedback showed that, they could have used the “saloon” body to MCE the “sedan,” but didn’t do that. With decisions like that, I’m not surprised there are others.
I owned 2 Countours and while fun to drive, they were small for the price, and expensive to fix.
Also, I think the Fusion based on Mazda 6 was a good direction, until the unified Fusion/Mondy we have now. Adapting another Euro car with a smallish interior to compete with Camry would’ve flopped and cost excess cash.
I had a ’98 Mystique LS, V6, 5-speed manual, loaded. Mine was built in Kansas City, so no bits fell off. They all succumbed to bad engineering, though. It wasn’t until 2000 that Ford revised the specification for the MTX-75 manual transmission fluid fill, so the manuals before 2000 ate their 3rd gear synchros because of excessive friction, including mine (at least I knew it when I bought it used, though. Got a good price accordingly). I loved the quirk where I had to overfill the coolant by an inch, or else the Low Coolant light would come on while going around a corner.
But damn was that car fun! That V6 and 5-speed were a great match for each other. They were light cars, they were very European in their handling and road manners, and that V6 made it shockingly quick. I had come from a 1989 Buick Riviera that had been beaten down, picked up, and beaten down again, and I had become used to cranking the wheel hard to change lanes. The first drive in the Mystique, well, it’s just as well there was no one else on the road because I changed about three lanes in one quick go!
Shame Ford couldn’t figure it out, because had they been reliable and priced right, they would have been fantastic cars. I think people would have really liked the driving dynamics had the automatic transmissions not all blown up or the manuals all eaten the synchros.
Actually, the only car I’ve driven since that’s been as much fun to drive as that Mystique is my current Fiesta ST.
I had a 1995 Mystique with the V6 and 5-speed. Loved it–it was quick by the standards of the time, handled great and had a good, but firm, ride. Sort of a 3-series on a budget. Getting it after a Geo Metro probably amplified its virtues, of course.
The bad: rear seat room rivaling the Metro. Needed a 6th gear: cruised at about 3,000 RPM. And build/parts quality. It did need work and attention. Most strangely, the entire center console wobbled. Never had that issue in any other car.
Had Ford been able to get those issues under control, this could have been huge in North America.
The 2nd-gen Mondeo had a much roomier rear seat than the previous Mondeo/Contour did, along with updated styling that somewhat resembled the B5.5 Passat that was quite popular in the US. I think the gen2 Mondeo would have done much better in America than the Contour did because of the roomier interior, but Ford couldn’t look beyond “the previous model didn’t sell so why would this one?”
I think strong sales of the current Fusion (which after drifting apart for several years is once again shared with the European Mondeo) proves me right.
I have not been fond of Fords, so have not paid much attention to what goes on there. However, during the depression they did not have to be bailed out. This was partly due to them borrowing a chunk of money before the depression started in 2008.
Ford’s body on frame cars were frightfully out of date. Mercury never amounted to much, although the Grand Marquis de Sade was not a bad car I guess.
Having driven a few (rentals) the Grand Marquis was a horrible, uncomfortable, way over-rated car. Definitely out of date. And, as a result of those drives (usually a week at a time) I cannot for the life of me see anything wonderful about the great vaunted Panther, other than its longevity in the market.
My parents owned an 84 which is the only one I have any experience with. It was reliable.
Interesting “what if?” scenarios to ponder, it could be interesting to see some rendering and/or clay models of the proposed “Mercury Flex” as well as other proposed Mercury models. Maybe we might know more in a future issue of “Collectible Automobile”. 😉
And what if Ford had decided to sell Lincoln?
I doubt they would have sold it. Too iconic. That would have been like GM selling the trademark & name Oldsmobile or Pontiac.
It would have been killed. Without price pressure from Lincoln they might actually be able to get higher transaction prices on loaded Fords.
Selling it would be difficult. As a stand alone company/brand it would be difficult to be profitable. The Navigator’s require the ford trucks as a platform.
I think any buyer for Lincoln would’ve only been interested in the Town Car’s lock on livery fleets, and probably would have plans to eventually replace it with a purpose-designed vehicle. Given that the last successful purpose-built taxi in America was the Checker Marathon designed almost 60 years ago and last available over 30 years ago, good luck with that…
Henry only bought Lincoln back in the day to exact revenge on Henry Leland by booting him out of the company, He then gave it to Edsel to play with.
The purchase of Lincoln also gave Mrs. Ford a proper Ford built luxury car to be chauffeured in, replacing a Packard. Ironically, Henry Ford’s last ride would be in a Packard hearse.
In point of fact, H.M. Leland did not boot Henry out the door — Leland wasn’t brought in until months after Henry’s financial backers had done so. I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if Henry still held it against the Lelands anyway (his treatment of them was pretty awful, by most accounts), but if that was the root of his animus, it was misplaced.
Who would buy Lincoln, the Chinese? Would have been just as successful as the attempts to bring SAAB back. And no way would the Chinese be building “RWD purist cars”. More like rebadged Geelys.
I have not read the book, but recall from the automotive and business press that Jacques Nasser was an S O B that was ultimately liked by nobody and very likely caused much of the caustic culture at Ford. He was a proponent of assuming that at anytime a significant portion of the workforce was worthless, and was constantly insisting that everyone should be looking at who should be fired next. The man was an arrogant ego walking in leather dress shoes.
Additionally, he had a propensity to think “cost cutting” and “product planning” amounted to the same thing. So, there was a tendency to cheapen even existing successful products and the idea of producing new product that was “class leading” was completely lost on him.
I recall that after Bill Ford finally showed Nasser the door that he practically gave the entire company a virtual hug and an apology for the pain that Nasser had brought to the organization.
Bill Ford seems to be a great guy, but I recall that even he began to think he was in a bit over his head after taking over the company from Nasser. Even if that’s that case, he still made two phenominal personnel decisions with the firing of Nasser and the hiring of Mulally.
The comment about the Mercury version of the Ford Flex is possibly off the mark. I bought the Flex’s predesessor, the 2005 Freestyle, and recall that a Mercury version was in the works – it was quite futuristic looking inside and out, and definitely would not have been confused with either the Freestyle or the Flex. Back in 2005, my dealer, a rare Ford-Mercury store, showed me some marketing material on the proposed Mercury.
Was it something like the Mercury Meta One concept?
You may have nailed it. I didn’t think it looked that much like the Freestyle, but then again I haven’t seen anything on this topic in 10 years.
The resemblance lessens somewhat when viewed from the front…
…and (to an extent) from the rear.
From the rear, it reminds me of a fattened Range Rover Evoque. Or rather, what you might get if someone did a “big” Evoque,” in the manner of the FIAT 500 and 500L.
this Merc is simply yet another rebadged Ford, no one would buy. And enough of the “I liked the Jill whats her name commercials, so they shoud have kept the brand, blah blah”
There is a huge difference between car guys* “liking” products, and what actaully sells and makes $$$$$!
* Who say “I always buy used, saves me $$$”
And enough of the “I liked the Jill whats her name commercials, so they shoud have kept the brand, blah blah”
I did a Ctrl+F on the page, and you were the only one who even mentioned Jill or the commercials. Not that I disagree with your main point (Mercury had to go), but I’m not sure why you brought that up.
I attempted to find a picture of the proposed Mercury, but only came up with this article on the cancellation of the project. It was considered a version of the Freestyle, but the Freestyle, Flex and stillborn Mercury are all variants of the same platform.
From 2006…
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20060208/NEWS05/200019453/ford-cancels-plans-to-build-mercury-version-of-freestyle
My thoughts exactly. I’ve also read articles dating back to 2009-ish that state Lincoln was not going to get a version of the Flex, and they ultimately did, which leads me to believe that product planning was more chaotic back then.
Sounds like an interesting book. I was rooting for Mr Mulally to succeed, being a fan of Ford in the Donald Peterson years, when real car guys in love with that company made cars that were the envy of most the other car manufacturers….
But when Peterson retired, that slide began. It started with the SUV craze and in particular the Ford Explorer. Later on, the Firestone tire/Explorer scandal must have rocked the company to the core. I felt they put too much emphasis on the Explorer and the other trucks, the obscenity of it all being the titanic-like Excursion. Thank God the SUV craze has abated from what it once was and Ford is back to making good cars once again.
Now, let’s talk about the poor decision of axing the Ford Ranger and offering no alternative for the US market but gigantic F150’s……but wait a second, they’re made of lightweight aluminum……meanwhile, the new Colorado seems to be seen a lot on the roadways these days…..
Indeed, nothing’s wrong with the Ranger except that its market has been in “secular” decline; Ford would be foolish to ignore that. You & I may like small pickups, but we’re a minority, apparently.
Besides, the Transit Connect is likely filling much of its niche, at least for fleet buyers, only the cargo area comes covered as standard.☺
Those Colorados are almost as large on the exterior as my 10 year old full size, don’t get appreciably better mileage than a new full size, yet offer quite a bit less cargo and passenger space. My guess is they are selling mainly on style and price.
I love the idea of them, but they missed the mark by a mile in my opinion.
And those Canyados have already peaked in sales in less than a year on the market.
“They’re selling slightly less right now, therefore they have definitely peaked and will never go back up again.”
If it’s any indicator, there’s no sign of the General canceling the 3rd shift in Wentzville anytime soon. Anything so much as a rumor of layoffs would be major news here in the STL area.
Yes, for a couple of reasons. #1 pent up demand, there were people who were Colorado loyalists that waited for the new one. Since it was off the market for a while people wanting to replace their old ones will never be higher. #2 it was the cool new thing and it no longer is and won’t be until a new/refreshed version comes along if it comes along.
The Chevy is down 3 months in a row, the GMC is not in as bad of shape. Model mix and availibily have been sorted out which was supposedly hampering them at introduction. Personally I thought they would have got 18 months out of it but it sure looks like it was only good for 9 months after all.
You might wanna check the numbers again. Between comparable models (4×4 crew cabs with the short bed), the current Colorado (for the most part) leans closer to the 2012 compact model than to a 2005 Silverado.
2012 Colorado:
Overall length: 207″
Wheelbase: 126″
Height: 68″
Width: 68.5″
2015 Colorado:
OAL: 213″
WB: 128″
H: 70.5″
W: 74″
2005 Silverado:
OAL: 226″
WB: 143.5″
H: 75″
W: 79″
(This is assuming you have a 2005 Silverado.)
The Colorado/Canyon is definitely larger than it used to be, but it’s not enormous, and it’s not a full-size. It just looks big because it sits tall on its frame, and it’s still shorter than the 1987 Dodge Dakota (and no one ever disputes that one being a mid-size).
yep. I keep telling people that the new Colorado/Canyon and the global Ranger look big because they’re tall and have high bed sides/door sills. I parked my 2011 PN150 Ranger next to one of the global Ranger pickups, and by eye they were within an inch or two of each other on length and width. The global truck was several inches taller.
also, they have available crew cabs which was rare on the previous generations of US small trucks; the PN150 Ranger never offered one.
I have a 2006 F-150 Crew.
2006 F-150
L:224
W:78.9
That is with bumpers. If you look at Chevy’s site, you will find the Colorado’s numbers, for whatever reason, do not include bumpers. Including bumpers put them quite close. And Long Box Colorado is longer.
I read and own the book. It’s a good read, informative and entertaining. That said I think Hoffman may have drank a little too much of Mulally’s Koolaid. At times his love of Mulally was a bit much for me. Now that Mulally is gone and we can look back, Ford is better off than it was and he certainly played a huge role in saving the company. However, Ford certainly didn’t or isn’t building too many game changers IMO.
Perhaps no game changing products, at least not yet, but he did implement game changing policies and processes.
“Game changing” products are often highly overrated, and risky.
Ford may not be building many game changers, but, from what I see in the suburbs in our region, Ford is the one domestic brand that people will still consider for more than pickups and larger crossovers. Otherwise, most driveways are filled with a collection of Acuras, Hondas, Toyotas, Lexuses and the occasional Hyundai.
If it weren’t for the Ram pickups, minivans and Jeeps, Fiat-Chrysler would be out of business, and even GM isn’t doing so well once you get beyond the pickups, full-size SUVs and Lambda-crossovers. At least Ford is still in the running, thanks to the Focus, Fusion, Mustang and Escape.
Speaking of FCA…technically the current Ford Ka (A-segment) is a Fiat.
Ford’s model range is, indeed, impressive. A-, B-, C- and D-segment cars, an almost endless list of MPVs, the Mustang, 4 different Transit models and the Ranger pickup.
it depends on the region; the new Ka for FSAO is based on the Fiesta.
You’d have to read the book. It was published in 2012, so most of Ford’s new stuff hadn’t really made any inroads. The way the book reads though the products that Mulally’s Ford developed were just going to rock the industry. Well, now in 2015, I’d say they didn’t. Game changers are important, especially in Ford’s history. Look at the 1965 Mustang, the 1986 Taurus, the 1991 Explorer. These were cars that changed entire segments, lead the way and helped Ford improve it’s market share. Ford hasn’t built a car like that in a long time.
Further in the book it goes on about Ford’s improvement in quality and reliability. Well, again that didn’t happen. Ford still lags way behind Toyota and Honda. Say what you will, but independent reliability data shows otherwise. The majority of our work fleet is Ford products (Fusion, Taurus, F-150, Econoline, Edge) and I can say I have not been impressed by a single one. The only Ford that I’d consider purchasing today would be a Mustang, specifically a GT350, and maybe an F-150 (although I am not a huge fan of the truck, but it is decent).
I do agree that Fords have generally been better accepted than GM or FCA products, but I think much of that has to do with GM and FCA ruining their reputation buy filing for bankruptcy and taking bail out money. Ford mortgaging everything but the kitchen sink before the credit dried up was one of the BEST marketing moves it ever made (although that wasn’t it’s intention). This seems to be something that really bothered a lot of Americans especially who don’t believe in government intervention of the free market. GM and FCA suffer because of this.
Honestly, the book is a great read, but like I said, in my opinion it’s just paints Mulally and Ford while looking through some rose coloured glasses.
nonsense. companies who live and die by releasing “game changers” usually die. The US automakers are prime evidence of that. The K-car was a game changer for Chrysler, then they milked it for all it was worth, let it rot, and slid down again. The original Taurus was a game changer, then Ford let it rot, and slid down again.
The general car-buying public doesn’t care about “game changers.” they’re buying cars as appliances. they care about whether they can trust their car.
Tell me this: what was the last “game changer” Honda or Toyota released?
Prius?
It’s getting harder and harder to create game changers. Tesla might be one.
Again, if you read the book, the author makes it out as if the cars Ford was developing under the “new Ford” would be cars that would lead the industry in innovation and sales. I never stated that game changers are required or necessary. However, they have been very important in Ford’s past successes, and certainly have brought Ford back from near death (ie 1949 Ford). Think of all the great Fords that have brought Ford back strong after it has stagnated. The Model A, the 1949 Ford, the 1965 Mustang, the 1986 Taurus, the 1991 Explorer. The book implied that the new line of Ford cars would lead it to a triumphant return to the top, much as these other cars in the past have done. I don’t think that happened. Sure the new Fusion is a decent car, but people aren’t trading their Camrys and Accords for Fusions. How many non-Ford customers switched to buying a Ford for the 1965 Mustang, or the 1986 Taurus or the 1991 Explorer?
And you’re right that Honda and Toyota haven’t really had too many big game changers, but they don’t need them (although one could argue the Prius is Toyota’s most recent). These two companies sell cars because many people look at their reputation and customers are often loyal because they consistently build good reliable cars that don’t disappoint owners. They built great cars in the past and still do and people know what they are getting, even if they aren’t the most innovative. As long as they stick with that formula they will keep their customers and probably pick up a few frustrated customers from other brands.
That’s ridiculous. The car buying public only tolerates resting on laurels for so long. Toyota garnered a rock solid reputation among a generation of owners, but staying the course with those because people who want them right now won’t necessarily be the same loyal customer base later. The Prius was a huge game changer, the Camorollas can only coast on their milquetoast qualities for so long before people begin to realize the rest of the market caught up, and had been caught up for some time, to the merits those cars exploited in their true hay day. The Prius was a totally new idea complimenting that reputation perfectly. It was the anti-Ponycar for the anti-total performance car company. A completely well timed all new catagory of car for a burgeoning market. If that’s not a game changer, I don’t know what is.
The success of almost every car company, especially in the American market, can be credited to game changers, even if the change was just importing something what they were already making that the next market didn’t have anything close to. If all the car buying public ever cared about was simply an appliance grade transport there would be literally only one car company. If that.
Toyota consistently sells 400,000 Camrys a year, and they were up by 20,000 units last year. a “game changer” might get you new customers, but it won’t keep them. The original Taurus was a game-changer, but they eventually screwed it up and Taurus owners bought Camrys instead.
if you rely on “game changers,” you will always live feast-or-famine. and that will kill you because you inevitably have to lay people off in times of famine. That brain drain (and the ensuing need to re-staff and re-train people) is an enormous drain on resources. The disastrous launch of the 2013 Fusion/MKZ is evidence of that; most of its development was done by a virtual skeleton crew after Ford cut so many heads just to survive.
XR7Matt, I am not sure if that last comment was at me or not. If I implied that Toyota and Honda rest on their laurels as the sole means to sell cars, then I apologize. I also agree a car company can only rest on it’s laurels for so long as you state. That said, I do think, Toyota in particular, has been walking a fine line with this lately. Do you think GM or Ford would have sold as many Corolla’s as Toyota did when they were still pedalling a 4-speed in 2013? And much of there “new” stuff lately have been heavy revisions of old designs. Yet they still sell, and sell very well at that.
You’d think Toyota would be the only car company in the world then…
The getting of customers is every bit as important as keeping them. Cadillac kept all of it’s customers, and by the 90s they were all literally dead or dieing because they didn’t feel the need to get new ones.
Every dog has it’s day. Enjoy Toyota’s peak, while it lasts.
Matt, I am not sure I agree with you on that one. I don’t assume all customers are the same, and even all of Toyota’s customers are not the same. Customers have a variety of needs wants and desires. Many people will choose vanity, features or driving dynamics over quality, or long term reliability. I was just stating what I believe are some of the reasons why Toyota sells some cars even though they haven’t really had too much innovation in their lineup as of late (other than the Prius). I don’t think you can deny that Toyota has been the king of the rehash lately?
Maybe you’re right that Toyota should be focussing on getting more customers for the long haul, but whatever their doing seems to work well since they have been #1 or #2 globally for several years, while having a strong lead in profitability. Who knows how long it will last, but I certainly don’t see Ford as a contender in my opinion. That said, although anecdotal, I know of many people who have switched away from the Ford or GM to Toyota and Honda, solely based on reputation, reliability and dealer experience.
At the end of the day, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Mercury is dead, Lincoln is on life support, there’s no proper RWD platform for larger cars, the Flex is ugly, Taurus is too big and ungainly and they killed off the Focus wagon. Ford is a mess. My next vehicle probably won’t be one.
Mercury got canned because there was no room for it between nicer Fords and Lincoln. Hopefully the new Continental (and eventually the new Navigator and Aviator) will turn things around for Lincoln. Large cars don’t necessarily need to be RWD. The Flex has a polarizing design (which will soon be its downfall), but it’s very roomy and comfortable, and everyone who owns one loves it. The Taurus is big because it’s a full-size car (although it would be nice if it had more room inside). The Focus wagon was dropped in the U.S. because American buyers preferred the Escape and (to a lesser extent) the C-Max.
Frank, Ford has basically mirrored half of its lineup with Europe which has resulted in products that are well-regarded on both continents and has helped bring down costs for the company.
Lincoln is slowly getting somewhere. Mercury was no loss. The Flex proved to be a sales disappointment but they ended up creating the vastly more successful Explorer anyway. Taurus is a full-size so of course it is big. Focus wagon was a niche player.
The only criticism I can really agree with is that it is disappointing Ford does not have a RWD sedan platform.
Mercury was a huge loss and a big mistake was made canceling it. Fact is that Mercury accounted for more than 1/2, on average, of the sales at Lincoln Mercury dealers. W/o Mercury many Lincoln dealers went away or were merged with Ford dealers which is doing nothing good for resurrecting Lincoln.
The Lincoln Mercury dealers allowed larger prices on the Fords as they would frequently exceed the price of a Mercury when fully loaded and got too close to a base Lincoln. The fact that Mercurys started at the mid range of the pricing of the Fords meant they had good margins.
The loss of Lincoln dealers was by design. In the late 2000s when Ford first started making moves to do something-anything with Lincoln, they looked at the rest of the luxury market and decided that one problem was that Lincoln was not sufficiently “exclusive.” They actively culled Lincoln dealers from the ranks, mostly by way of forcing them to drop at least $1 Million in renovations to match the new Lincoln dealership experience Ford wanted to create. The dealers that didn’t do it immediately had their franchises canceled. Lincoln had figured they had closer to 2000 dealers across the country, while Lexus had something like 700. Ford actively sought to get Lincoln much closer to that 700, as they figured that the Lincoln stores were just cannibalizing each other and selling on price instead of on the buying experience.
And those Mercury margins are the same margins (and then some) that Ford makes every time they sell a Titanium trim Ford. Sure, Mercury was good for a few sales per year, but the cost of maintaining a separate brand infrastructure outweighed the margin from the cars. More importantly, though, Mercury’s continued existence hurt Ford’s reputation, as instead of making nice, well-equipped, well-engineered cars, they were seen as being cheap and slapping new grilles and headlights trying to make a few more bucks.
Mercury was Ford not being confident in Fords and hedging their bets. Once Ford decided that Ford was going to be the best in every segment in which they compete, they got on with it and made Ford the best in every segment in which they compete. That was actually a Mulally strength, too. Before him, people in Ford didn’t believe Ford was the best, and they designed cars to a pricepoint instead of to a standard accordingly. Mulally wanted Ford to only sell Fords. He wanted all the other brands gone, and he wanted Ford selling the absolute best; small, medium, and large; cars, trucks, and utilities.
Axing Mercury was one of the best things Ford could have done.
I don’t know if I’d call Fords “the best in every segment”, but they are certainly up there these days. And it shows when you try to buy one. My mom is looking to buy a 2015 Edge and they are hard to come by and offering little in the way of incentives. Not long ago that would be unheard of for a domestic this time of year.
If it’s any consolation, our ’10 Edge Limited has aged horribly after 6 years and 120k miles. I just said to my wife tonight we need to return to Toyota/Lexus within 12 months. Her ’03 Highlander was still a block of granite after 100k miles; we only traded it because she thought the Edge was very stylish.
Cutting Mercury and then following it up with the required upgrades to the dealership was an attempt and killing Lincoln on the cheap. That is what Mullaly wanted, not to make it more exclusive. Had they killed both at the same time they would have faced huge costs from lawsuits from the dealers who lost all their new car lines.
Fact is that in most cases the loss of Mercury crippled the L-M dealers so there was no way they could afford the upgrades. So what has happened in the real world is that they awarded a few Ford dealers the Lincoln franchise in their area and they are usually given a back seat in those dealers and they have not required them to do anything special for Lincoln. Heck the local Ford Lincoln dealer doesn’t normally even have a Lincoln in the showroom. It also limits Ford from selling as many of the higher margin versions.
A good example was the Explorer, Mountaineer and Aviator when they were all available. At Ford you could spend from the mid 20’s to $45K. Over at the L-M store the Mountaineer started at $30K and ran to $40K . While the Lincoln started at $40K and ran to over $50K. Had the Fords and Lincolns been in the same showroom as they are now they could not have gotten away with the extra profit on the Fords or it would have cut deeper into Lincoln sales.
Yes they had given up on proper differentiation the Sable had always been way more than just different headlights and grille, the 2nd gen Mountaineer had a lot of unique sheet metal but by the time the Milan came along that was lost.
Since there were virtually no stand alone Mercury dealers the cost to support the network was essentially the same as supporting a Lincoln only network had they not forced most Lincolns into Ford showrooms.
Killing Mercury was the biggest of the few mistakes made in the Ford turn around.
Also the L-M dealers were to blame for the downfall of Mercury. For example when they demanded an Explorer and Ford whipped up the Mountaineer they quickly started complaining that they were too exclusive coming only in a version comparable to the Limited trim on the Explorer with the V8 and AWD. Ford relented and started offering a lower content version and the V6. They did a similar thing with the Monterey complaining that they didn’t have a minivan and then when they did get them they complained that they was not a model comparable to the base Freestar. Ford even went so far as to give it an exclusive engine in the 4.2.
Ford’s CUVs, SUVs, trucks and mid/compacts are doing fine, and the Focus wagon was a non seller.
A “mess”? Go look at their profits made by not trying to force feed Focus wagons.
yeah, I agree with that analysis. Alan Mulally created the environment which lit a fire under the asses of the execs, but if there is one person to be credited with doing something to literally save Ford Motor Company’s bacon, it is indeed Don Leclair. securing billions in private financing well before the credit markets dried up was absolutely, 100% critical to riding out the Great Recession.
What Alan Mulally and Mark Fields did was end the nonsense of treating Ford North America, Ford of Europe, Ford of Australia, and Ford South American Operations like completely independent entities. It was beyond stupid that FNA had the Mazda JV-based CD3 platform for their midsized car while the other Ford regions had the Mondeo. It was beyond stupid that FNA clung to a pathetic papering-over of the C170 Focus while the rest of the world moved on to the C307.
Don LeClair saved Ford. The strategy Alan Mulally and Mark Fields put in place are why Ford is still doing well.
There was a Mercury variant of the Ford Flex that never saw the light of day. I suspect there were more concepts and designs for future Mercury vehicles that were never produced, but that is the only model specifically mentioned.
there was supposed to be a “Mercury Tracer” version of the C346 Focus, until the decision was made to get rid of the Mercury brand.
yeah, and I agree with your analysis. 🙂
Ford was a global clusterf*ck. Although Mulally had no automotive experience, he did the obvious thing, looked to the global leader (Toyota) and determined Ford to be and act more like Toyota, and for good reasons.
The “One Ford” strategy is pure Toyota, but a good one. And although I want to like Ford for pursuing it, I find myself having a hard time getting enthusiastic about many of the products. I’m not quite sure why…and I try to not let it color my thinking, but it’s there, to some extent or another.
But yes, Mulally is smart, and did the right things which was to focus on increasing average transaction prices and profitability.
IMO Mulally didn’t specifically need automotive experience. being an engineer and manager at Boeing was more than enough to know how to run a car company.
“The “One Ford” strategy is pure Toyota, but a good one.”
not really. Ford still is trying to do too much too quickly. A big part of why Toyota maintains their rep for reliability and durability is because they don’t change much. I mean, how long did Toyota saddle the Corolla with a 4-speed automatic?
I didn’t say that Ford had mastered the Toyota strategy. And actually, I meant mainly the aspect of dumping all those PAG brands and Mercury. Mulally saw that folks would buy well-trimmed Fords at healthy prices. The whole concept of multiple tiered brands is archaic.
Well, also, my impression has been that Mercury’s real function for the last three decades or so of its existence was not so much to fill the gap between Ford and Lincoln as it was to give Lincoln-Mercury dealers some Ford-like (and more or less Ford-priced) products to sell between Town Car and Navigator transactions. There’s no really compelling reason you need an extra brand for that.
Having Mercury as a companion to Lincoln was a great reason to have it as it kept Lincolns out of Ford dealers and made them profitable. Once Mercury was axed and the Lincolns went into Ford dealers or stand alone dealerships, many that quickly failed, it cost Lincoln a lot of sales.
“The whole concept of multiple tiered brands is archaic.”
Should we tell VAG? Of course, they may have too much on their plate already.
The new very-upscale Limited versions of the F-150 and some Ford cars are like the 1965 LTD all over again. Some people who would never set foot in a luxury-brand showroom can nonetheless be encouraged to spend more than they intended when they see loaded-up versions of mainstream vehicles from the same brand that sells the sensible, affordable cars they see themselves driving. These cars, crossovers, and trucks are much easier to sell from a Ford showroom than they’d be as Mercurys with unfamiliar names. It’s easier to move someone up to a top-of-the-line Explorer or Fusion than to expect these customers to change to a different dealer and buy a Mountaineer or Milan.
L-Mercury dealers competed with Ford dealers selling the same badge jobs. The look alike cars with huge rebates didn’t bring in profits to Dearborn HQ, just the dealers made money with ‘rustproofing’, pinstripes, and goo-gaa add-ons.
Local L-M dealers still used the “our cars are better than a Ford” tag, even if made in same plants! Wasteful. I had a Tracer, but why bother if it’s same car as a Scort? Same with Town Cars which ended up as ‘fancy taxis’ or ‘elder in left lane going 45 on Freeway’.
Toyota is learning that with Scion, or as most call it “Toyota Scion” about too many brands.
Lincoln should stand alone and not next to rebadged Tempos.
I may be in the minority here, but I find the current lineup much more appealing than Ford had managed in the U.S. in many years. I have some quibbles about some of their offerings (many of which could be addressed without a major redesign) that might make me shop elsewhere were I in the market, but their B-, C-, and D-segment cars each seem sound enough to at least merit a look. Ten or 15 years ago, they wouldn’t have been on my list at all.
Yeah the real key to saving Ford was mortagaing the Blue Oval and pawning off JLR, and Volvo when there were still companies that could afford to buy them. Not saying that Mullaly didn’t make important contributions but none of what he did would have been possible if the cash horde had not been accumulated to ride out the storm.
yep. and the other huge thing which has helped is that when Mulally retired, there was no chaotic transition to “the new king.” Mark Fields was part of Ford’s turnaround from the start, and all through the transition nothing changed. No need to come in and change things for the sake of changing things.
Well CEO worship aside, the Taurus was and is a tainted name. It was the right car in 1986 and it rode that wave until it came crashing to shore. I’m not a proponent of name succession American brands tend to do but what made the Taurus name so damn special in the first place? Let alone earn a reprieve so few truly great names have gotten? it’s a born by committee name if there ever was one, it certainly wasn’t any better than Fairlane or Torino.
As for the results, I’d say yes, he was successful. I however rooted for Ford as an underdog brand in the 00s, they were for a long time the only car company in the world making proper V8 powered cars, the only one of which fielding a ponycar at one point, giving a big middle finger to all the four banger FWD do gooder brands like Honda and Toyota, and as a young enthusiast who grew up around a bunch of condescending asshole import fanbois, it’s kind of bittersweet seeing the success and praise cars like the Focus ST and Ecoboost Mustangs get now. Seems like the current buyers of those would have been attracted to a Civic SI or 350z a decade ago, kind of the antithesis of what made Mustangs appealing at the same time. What Ford needed was better and more appealing full lineup in the 00s, particularly the stagnant compact and midsize classes, the Mustang was always solid and competitive compared to it’s competition(it sold better pre Mually btw), The Explorer was hot and competitive until gas prices skyrocketed, and the Vic worked well as a traditional full size for a shockingly long time, and hasn’t had a worthy successor.
It’s like baseball though, you’ve got people who like the team even when they suck, and you have those who jump on the bandwagon when they don’t, and then act as though they were there all along.
“Well CEO worship aside, the Taurus was and is a tainted name. It was the right car in 1986 and it rode that wave until it came crashing to shore. I’m not a proponent of name succession American brands tend to do but what made the Taurus name so damn special in the first place?”
the only reason the Taurus name “came crashing to shore” is because Ford neglected the car and de-contented it into a fleet special. It was the right car in 1986 because it was the car people were looking for in 1986. The problem with the US (and European) automakers is that they’ll come out with a car/architecture/platform to great fanfare, then milk it for all it’s worth, let it rot, throw it away, and start over. Chrysler did that with the K platform, Ford did it with the Taurus, GM did it a bazillion times, etc. Meanwhile, Honda, Toyota, et al just evolved their platforms steadily over the years. even though the modern Accord, Camry, Corolla etc. are hardly the same as their ancestors, you can easily trace their lineage back to at least the early 1980s.
I understand that, and I think I acknowledged that pretty well within the section you quoted. My point is it was tainted and by 2006 was way too late to save. Mually railing the company for letting the Taurus name wither like it did was a very true assertion that needed to be publicly put out there as it was, however, the the shallow gesture of renaming the moribund Five-Hundred it was a completely nebbish move to assert his position, and ironically, if not for the Five Hundred’s already tepid sales, the continued failure could be used as proof positive that the name was indeed tainted and better left dead.
The Taurus made a great example of the disfunction at Ford(and the big three), but it shouldn’t have been resurrected for redemption, not the way it was anyway.
The trouble was that in 2007, when they announced the revival of the Taurus nameplate, Five Hundred had less than 50 percent brand recognition after two years in the marketplace. Taurus, despite having been a fleet car for the bulk of the 2000s, had over 80 percent brand recognition. I think it was Mark Fields at a presentation that said “We can’t buy that kind of name recognition.”
So basically the decision, in part anyway, came down to whether throwing money at telling the public what a Five Hundred is and why they should buy it was worth it.
And frankly, the Five Hundred should have been called the Taurus the day it was released. When I started at Ford, I saw two cars that were still months away from being released to the public and I had never seen before. One I recognized as the next Mustang by the pony. The other was quite nice, well-styled, well-appointed inside, had the general shape of a Taurus but bigger. I thought for sure it was a new Taurus. I walked around the back of the car and saw “Five Hundred,” and I accidentally said out loud “What the fuck is a Five Hundred? Is it 200 better than the 300?” When I saw a few glares from people that heard me, I kinda wondered if my days there were going to be few in number.
Over 11 years later, though, I know I was right.
It had below 50 percent brand recognition because it was a completely anonymous car with no real compelling merits and no power. Affixing Taurus to Five Hundred didn’t help it one bit, If anything the 2010 restyle and 3.5 alone would have accounted for whatever subsequent sales bumps it did get, Taurus badge or not.
I would wager in the first two years the Focus was on sale more people associated Escort with Ford than it as well.
someone elsewhere joked about that, when the Mustang and Five Hundred launched; they said J. Mays has two modes: “retro” and “Passat.”
No the Taurus didn’t get tainted because they neglected it, it was tainted because they missed the market by a mile with the 97. The design was a step too far aesthetically, which was the bigest reason. The other problems were that it went up market just as the competition was decontenting and making their car more Taurus like in almost every way. Now because of that and the sales drop that followed they were forced to decontent it and redesign it sooner than they had intended. Of course once they did that it was too late so they did soldier it on to recoup at leas some of the costs.
In addition to the faults of the Taurus from the 1990s and beyond, it was also hampered by the fact that the popularity of mid-sized sedans was waning since its initial introduction for the 1986 model year, when the market for such vehicles was strong. By the time the all-new 1996 was introduced, the market was seeing a significant shift toward other types of vehicles: SUVs and extended cab trucks, and even vans were still selling reasonably well at that time.
That’s not to say that there was nothing wrong with the Taurus from about 1990 onward – in fact, far from it. It’s just that, even if Ford had released a perfect mashup of the Camry and Accord in 1996, sales probably wouldn’t have even approached the success of the 1986 model. By that point, buyers had not only moved on to other brands of mid-sized sedans, but to other types of vehicles.
Yes the shift in the buying public’s taste had a huge impact on the Taurus. Fact is that the Explorer had become the best selling “car” in the US and the profit per vehicle was much much higher than it was on the Taurus so it is easy to see why they quickly neglected old fish face.
Recently rented a new Taurus Limited and was quite impressed. Liked it better than the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger, both also frequent rentals.
Unfair to compare sales of this Taurus to the original. The mid-large size sedan market is nowhere near what it was in 1986. Just too many alternatives – CUV’s, SUV’s etc. Also, the new Taurus is a premium car (with a price to match), something the original wasn’t. I can understand why Ford originally named this The Five Hundred. Although Taurus was an iconic name with a high recognition rate, it was associated by the public with a modestly priced mid-size car. The Fusion is really the old Taurus’ successor.
The fact that the public associated the Taurus name with a modestly priced car was one of the things that killed the fish mouth cars. Those who weren’t scared away by the styling were scared away by the price.
I’m also in the camp of “Mulally saved Ford”. You have to have been at Ford to realize how dysfunctional it was through the 80s and 90s, into the 00s. The Americans in Marketing and Product had an extreme case of “NIH” syndrome, insisting they knew best what American buyers wanted, despite ample evidence (increasing market share for Toyota, Honda, et. al.) to the contrary. The Finance team made sure money was available to survive the recession without filing BK, and Mulally got all parts of the organization pulling together.
Nasser poured all of the company’s resources into trucks and misbegotten acquisitions, leaving the cars to die on the vine. One can lay the downgrading of Lincoln to his decision to create the Premier Automotive Group – PAG – Jaguar/Land Rover/Volvo/Lincoln/Mercury), when it was decided Jaguar and Land Rover would be the true luxury brands for Ford, relegating Lincoln to the role of Buick/Chrysler competitor. Then once JLR was sold, it left Ford without a true luxury brand.
Mercury? As has been documented here numerous times, Ford didn’t know what to do with Mercury. Was it a uniquely styled version of a facing Ford model (Fox Bird/Cougar) that tapped different parts of the market? Was it a Ford with a different grille and taillights (Fusion/Milan or Granada/Monarch)? If the latter, then there was no reason for it to exist, because comparably-equipped Mercuries priced out within $50 of their Ford counterparts, and without incremental volume from going into different parts of the market, it would be hard to justify any investment in the brand. Mercury could have been lots of things. With unique sheetmetal and truly upscale interiors, it could have been a Buick competitor. With powertrains not available on facing Fords, it could have been a performance brand. Ultimately, it was neither.
As it stands, Ford’s product lineup today is as strong as I’ve ever seen it. Economy? Got that covered. Performance? Yes, as good as it’s ever been. No Panthers, true, but without a huge investment in chassis and engine upgrades, you’d be left with big, slow, ponderous beasts, and the market for those is (literally) dying off.
So hats off to Alan and to One Ford!
I think the success of Mulally was due to the previous horrible job done by Jacques “the Knife” Nasser. I think that Jacques is quite possibly not only the worst executive Ford ever had, but one of the worst auto executives of all time. He’s right up there with the likes of Bob Eaton, Roger Smith, and Jurgen Schrempp.
From as much research as I’ve gathered, Jacques had put the company in a really bad place. First was the idiotic move to by both Volvo and Land Rover, two companies that didn’t really improve from their time being under the Blue Oval’s ownership (Land Rover still had reliability problems and ended up introducing the horrible Freelander and second gen Discovery. Meanwhile Ford tried to move Volvo upmarket to compete with lower end Mercedes and BMWs, while having cars that slowly chipped away at the company’s unimpeachable reliability, including having several models that ate transmissions like skittles.) Then was the move to create PAG, a decision that not only caused Ford to waste billions on companies that would eventually be sold off in a few years time, but also neglected Ford’s own luxury brand, Lincoln, in the process. Speaking of which, let’s talk about Lincoln. Ford’s focus on PAG ended up severely hurting Lincoln in the process, the Town Car was left to whither on the vine and became slowly decontented when Jacques was in office, the LS was an idea that seemed good but had no chance of working (ironically I think Cadillac found more success in the American luxury Sports sedan concept the LS was aiming for) and the Navigator was successful, but it only would’ve been a matter of time before the bottom would fall out of the SUV market. All of these decisions led to the state Lincoln is in today, trying to fight to get itself as an established player in the Luxury market again (They’re starting to get there, but they’ve still got a ways to go). Also, speaking of SUVs, need I remind you that under Nasser’s leadership, Ford got involved in the Exploder and Firestone scandal that not only damaged the reputation of one of Ford’s most successful products, but also cost the company billions of dollars in share prices and their relationship with Bridgestone in the process? (Admittedly, there are plenty of other factors in the whole Firestone debacle, some of which can also be laid at the consumer, but Jacques attitude during the whole thing certainly didn’t help)
So yes, I do think that Mulally was successful in helping Ford. Admittedly, the products that Ford makes are not what I would consider looking at if I had the money and some of the lavish praise they’re receiving is starting to get tiresome (I find the current Fusion an unattractive car, I would even call its looks pretentious if I was in a less than generous mood). But, the fact that they are making cars again that can not only be competitive in their market segments, but legitimate alternatives to the usual Toyota/Honda/Nissan bread and butter products in said market segments, well I think that speaks for itself. Plus, Mulally’s decision to shed Ford’s dead weight (All the brands that were under PAG and the by that point, redundant and pointless Mercury) and to focus on the core products that are crucial to the brand’s success (besides SUVs and trucks) says it all to how the company is thriving today. Ironically enough, I think Mulally also brought some life back to Lincoln, at the very least the company is trying to take steps to make itself established in the luxury market again. If I had the cash to buy one (which I certainly won’t anytime soon) and had to look at luxury cars to choose from, I would buy a brand new MKC, MKZ, or even a Navigator, oddly enough. Which for a brand that years ago was basically considered dead man walking, is astonishing to consider.
Mulally wanted to kill off Lincoln too, but Fields convinced him to take a crack at reviving it.
I agree that PAG hurt Lincoln and the LS was a huge flop. Why name it the same as a cheap Saturn, and the “base trim” of all Chevys!?
The best benefit of having Mulally was that he was an ‘outsider’ to the auto industry.
Therefore, he had no legacy issues, no baggage, no loyalty to a brand or some worthless Vice President. He performed the surgery necessary to substain Ford through the worse of times.
Now that he’s gone, let’s see if Ford can maintain its momentum or will it need another surgeon in a few years.
So many great comments here.. can’t really add much to what you’ve all already said. I have to admit, the first thing I did was scroll through to read the comments of ‘warren’ .. wow. Just wow..
This is interesting, I will have to check out this book.
One aspect I find intriguing from the discussion above is that Ford managed to genuinely change it’s corporate culture, which has been critical to their survival and success. I work for a small large company which used to be a large small company and the corporate culture has deteriorated since the transition.
Late in the game comment: Regarding the American Focus v. 1.5 vs. the European v. 2.
When the “new” American Focus debuted, I can remember all the car mags moaning on and on and on about how the Europeans were getting a new car and all we were getting was a rehash of the old model. Any objective comments regarding the execution of the product were completely lost under all the whining. And of course, it was a POS (or damned close) because we didn’t get anything new.
Then v. 3 of the Focus comes out and, surprise, surprise, it seems as a used car the old v. 1.5 is actually a pretty good driver, handles respectably, is well built, and doesn’t have an odd automatic transmission to boot.
Methinks a lot of auto reviewers need to live in a 2001 Cavalier as their daily driver in between review cars. Just to remind them of what ‘transportation’ constitutes.
This is very true. In early 2011 My Mom still had her much loathed Quest minivan and longed to have a smaller car with a real trunk again, and when things came to a head with the van the all new V3 Focus was in the showrooms and my Mom and Dad were ready to buy, so after the test drives, what car ended up rolling into the driveway? A V1.5 09 with 5k on the clock. Neither liked the 11 for all those reasons, and the overall fun to drive factor was equal, if not a little better in a way, on the “outdated” 09 she ultimately brought home, and to her it’s her favorite car since her old VWs.
Just shows you how consumer tendencies today are shaped more by the media than their actual tastes. They read what the “journalists” say and stop thinking for themselves. I used to be that way too until I was disappointed one too many times with what they said was best.
We have a 2005 Focus SE sedan with over 214,000 miles on the odometer. It has been very reliable, but when I test drove a current Focus at an event recently, it was like driving a Lexus compared to our old car. Or even our 2003 Honda Accord EX four-cylinder sedan. The only thing that has kept us from considering the new Focus is the problematic automatic transmission.
The point of the current Ford lineup is that they are producing cars on the same platforms that are able to be sold around the world. Most comments I’ve read above, especially those from the ‘down-under’ supporters of Australia-developed platforms, seem to want to ignore the truly enormous costs of developing a car these days. If you can’t take that single development and sell it in as many markets as possible, you simply cannot make a return on the investment. That is simply it.
Ford needed someone to come in and unify their platforms. Get them out of the path where they developed a Ford Focus for Europe, and a similarly named, but completely different, Ford Focus for the US. Mulally managed that reorganization successfully and has now given Ford the time to redevelop their platforms around the world. And in less than 10 years!
I wish Sherwood Egbert had been given the time to do that at Studebaker (he wasn’t fired, cancer took him at only 49).
The “down under” supporters as you call them simply desire a comparable GLOBAL RWD platform to replace it. The D3 was what we got, and from what I understand will be going down under as the Falcon’s replacement as well. That platform and the unholy acquisition of Volvo it from where it spawned should have never happened.