[tripleblack]

Holy feces, Batman! Just got a gander at the new lineups for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, etc.

Fully loaded Grand Cherokees ripping off 0-60 times under 5 seconds (rain OR shine!!!!), 1/4 mile in 13 flat - SRT-8 everythings, everywhere, priced right and readily available.

The new Challenger coupe would be on line too, but Chrysler (unlike GM and Ford) is having difficulty finding plant capacity to add a new model.

Maybe they should look in the real estate listings. Rumor has it that a large number of assembly plants just happen to be "available". Doubtless cheap, too. "Owner financing" might be rare, though.

Sigh.

If they're smart, they'll dump the dumpy Charger body, add a cut down version with a coupe body, offer that one as a ragtop, and put EXTREME pressure on Ford. Probably still need to add a couple new factories, but hey, that's the price of success, right?

Sad, when only the sloth of your competition allows you to survive. Ford, are you paying attention?

tripleblack

[tripleblack]

Ford's Prez has initiated his own snowbird working vacation and was last spotted touring the highlights in Thailand. (Article is here: http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom...nation=&symb=f ).

It appears the AAT pickup truck plant (auto alliance thailand) has just passed a milestone worthy of a junket from wintery Detroit.

Coming myself from a corporate background, it always surprised me how often cold weather at home coincided with costly-but-necessary business trips for the higher-ups to our tiny facilities in Hawaii, etc.

One hopes the AAT plant didn't have to either sit idle or run overtime TOO long to produce that last Ranger truck needed to fullfill the "milestone" number and trigger the necessity of a Ford management junket...

Of course, investing about half a billion dollars in a country where you spend most of your speech complaining about what sounds like thinly-veiled government kick-backs seems odd to me, too.

Well, if anyone back home wonders what Ford plans to do with the extra money they've squeezed out of their health insurance, this just about does the deed.

Anybody who thought they might use the money to keep a US plant afloat, go to the back of the class.

tripleblack

[tripleblack]

Bankcorp (http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom...nation=&symb=f) has dropped their price target for Ford to $7 (they're almost a month behind Citi in doing this, and about 4 months behind me, of course). Turns out that Ford and GM have overestimated their gains from the recent round of health care negotiations.

GM's stock dropped to 23 year lows (!), trading in the mid-18's, while Toyota set a record at well over $105 per share. It appears that current production/sales projections have Toyota overhauling GM in the next year or so. Oh, how the mighty are fallen...

Look for a 10% shift downward (from current low levels) for sales of large SUV's and trucks. Look for the small cars and, to a lesser exent, small SUV's to pick up the slack.

Ford's offerings in these areas are particularly weak right now, with few plans to address the shortcomings.

This should fulfill analyst's projections for next year, which will see a further contraction of Ford's market share and profitability.

GM will follow suit, with their need to "correct size" exceeding even Ford's, and the flexibility to do so hamstrung by a combination of protectionist european/canadian governments and inept corporate management, GM will totter closer to bankruptcy.

tripleblack

[tripleblack]

I'm not saying this was Kerk's plan, but at $13 per share (current forcast stock price for GM within the next 6 months), he could take the money from the 12 million GM shares he recently sold and buy over 18 million shares, thus yielding a numeric gain of 6,000,000 shares on the transaction.

This would increase his share of the company from the original 9.9% to nearly 12%, with little out-of-pocket expense.

If the idea was to gain partial control over the Board of Directors, and 9% was insufficient, perhaps 12% will work.

tripleblack

Originally Posted by kscoyote

Kerkorian sold a bunch of shares the other day . ... .

[tripleblack]

This link will get you to an easy to read review of 2005 sales:
http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom...nation=&symb=f

Ford Corp. was down about 4.9% overall, with the Ford division down 4.7%. Mercury had a small 2% gain for the year, and Rover had a big jump of 30%.

Anyone who thinks that selling big (and some medium) size SUV's is a losing business should keep an eye on Range Rover, where their new lineup of powerful SUV's is kicking A. A 30% year to year increase, with strong gains both before and after the gas price increases, is impressive.

Jaguar and Volvo, however, are losing ground.

Jaguar is seeing their lower-end sales vanish, particularly the X Type (underpowered near-luxury car that simply can't compete and doesn't really mate up well with the rest of the Jaguar line). It appears obvious that they need to jazz up their upper-crust offerings and replace the X with a more known factor... I still say the new XK is far too close to the Aston Martin in looks and design, and not the "Follow ME!" XKE grand-child it should be. The big Jags are due a refinement, with my suggestion to smooth and flow the lines into the age-old "leaping cat" hood ornament they should be sporting. Origami BMW sight tricks and boxy, slab-sided "moderne" treatments will be kiss of death if they are foisted on the Jaguar brand!

Volvo is experiencing the opposite problem of their Range Rover and Jaguar siblings - their SUV's and smaller car models are not selling, with the big SUV's hardly selling at all. With the reverse happening at Range Rover, I would think they need to re-think their strategy and emulate whatever Rover has managed to accomplish. As for the Volvo cars, rethinking their target market should be step one. The "giant flat floor" station wagons of yore must be available in all models, and the safe/solid/stolid feel must be reinforced, not softened and refined. Making Volvo more "generic" was/is/will be a mistake. Swedish dishes are not for everyone, but then, that the IDEA of a Volvo!

Ford's stock has crept up to over $8.30 per share again, buoyed by some crumbs of "only a few more interest rate hikes" news from a Fed board which has suddenly begun leaking like a Pinto's gas tank. Given that these changes in interest rates are now factored into Ford's stock price and financial performance evaluations, look for the up-tick to die an early death. News that the guvmint is NOT going to heed Bill Ford's pleas for big-buck help marketing hybrid vehicles that don't save the purchaser money either at the point of purchase OR long term will become obvious soon, and any effect that forlorn hope may have in keeping the wolves from the door will vanish. Look for Ford's battered credit rating to explore new depths very soon...

Expect some rather tepid "human interest" coverage from the major media as GM and Ford start shutting down factories one after another in the coming months. Local and (in Michigan) regional news organizations will carry the water for these events, but the big channels will find it difficult to focus on a story that doesn't include brainwashed idiots blowing themselves and buildings full of their fellow muslims into the next universe.

The myopic media fixation on finding SOME way of bringing down the rudderless Bush Administration is going to cost our nation much of its manufacturing base. We can only hope that the tiny fraction of true journalists remaining in front of our vidoe camers and behind our major newspaper's word processors can somehow present the real ramifications of a United States without any industrial base to the great unwashed...

tripleblack

[Twister]

Here are a few ideas for Ford, make a T-Bird that can compeate with a Vette, in looks, performance and price. Make a family car that can hold 4 adults over 6 feet tall that does not look like a 5 year old Audi. Dump the 4.6, how many changes have been done to this engine since 1992? more than the 302 since 1968...I am a family guy, I am big, I bought a Dodge Magnum because I could fit in it, the only Ford car now made that I fit into is the Crown Vic, and I do not want to imitate a police officer. The SUV is getting a lot of negative feedback, and the Escape Hybred has no guts, does not get that great fuel mileage of a Prius, and costs $10K more! It would take 10 years to get the difference in fuel. Ford, get a clue, the F-150 lookd real good, now it looks like crap. The only sedan made that I like is the Milan, at least you got that right, but a year too late for me

[tripleblack]

I've been mulling over the Thunderbird since I started this thread. I didn't mention it in my review except as a line that was being terminated. Why the now-late tbird was reincarnated with a wimpy little motor is beyond me, and now that she's dead we'll probably never know. A revised Bird based upon the new Mustang platform could certainly work, with the concept for design cues coming from the 60's tbirds rather than the 50's 2 seaters. The current crop of chrome dress and grills being used on the Mercuries and 500's would mate up very well with a classy T-Bird redux. Drive train would benefit from the 5.4 from the Shelby, and yes, the price would be high but no more than base Corvette territory.

For a car that can go toe-to-toe with the Corvette, a 2 seater SVT Cobra (IRS included) should be the next all-new platform design to replace the Saleen-manufactured GT supercar. Several versions of show cars (including a nice Shelby design) are out there that could be used to base the new car.

As for the 4.6 being at the end of its line, this is debatable, given that blocks are rapidly becoming the less-important component in the power producing equation. Since the motor family is "modular", and intended to merge seamlessly in production, one displacement to another, the ability to adjust for model differentiation should be built into the design. The 5.4 right up to the monster 6.8 V10 are viable motors to build new performance models upon. The 4.6 blocks are virtually unchanged from the original 1996 Mustangs, though the 2valve heads were updated in 1999, as were the intakes, etc. With the dohc versions comprising the main variation until the current crop of 3 valve heads came along, the 4.6 family has actually been a very stable motor for Ford.

As for the size problem I resemble that remark myself. Be advised that the entire full-size line is being replaced with a "stretch" version of the Ford 500, including the Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Marauder and Crown Vic. The new cars will be detuned versions of the near-luxury Zephyr, which certainly fails to enthuse me (and, I suspect, lots of other folks). The direction Ford is taking appears to be toward an 80's Euro philosophy, with the gamble that these relatively small-but-roomy fwd replacements will fulfill the same needs met by their departed full size rwd ancestors. As near as I can tell, this is the same theory that has brought GM to the verge of bankruptcy...

You're absolutely correct about the hybrids, although the Toyotas (I have it on good authority that Toyota loses money on every one they sell) really don't get better fuel mileage than the high-gas-mileage Toyota models they are based upon. Paying a $10,000 premium to buy a car that gets the same mileage results as the same car WITHOUT the hybrid package is lunacy, of course. If you really want better mileage, go for the small Toyota or Honda you can buy with a normal drivetrain. In any event, no one seems to talk about the pollution these high-tech batteries can cause both as they're being manufactured and when they're exhausted and have to be dumped somewhere. Also, how much energy does it take to build the cars vs a normal gas or diesel vehicle? Money aside (and everyone agrees that even with preferential tax treatment and government incentives the hybrids cost more to operate over they life-span than conventional powerplants), the ecological impact study for these things remains to be done...

tripleblack

Originally Posted by pita

Here are a few ideas for Ford, make a T-Bird that can compeate with a Vette, in looks, performance and price. Make a family car that can hold 4 adults over 6 feet tall that does not look like a 5 year old Audi. Dump the 4.6, how many changes have been done to this engine since 1992? more than the 302 since 1968...I am a family guy, I am big, I bought a Dodge Magnum because I could fit in it, the only Ford car now made that I fit into is the Crown Vic, and I do not want to imitate a police officer. The SUV is getting a lot of negative feedback, and the Escape Hybred has no guts, does not get that great fuel mileage of a Prius, and costs $10K more! It would take 10 years to get the difference in fuel. Ford, get a clue, the F-150 lookd real good, now it looks like crap. The only sedan made that I like is the Milan, at least you got that right, but a year too late for me

[kscoyote]

Originally Posted by pita

Here are a few ideas for Ford, make a T-Bird that can compeate with a Vette, in looks, performance and price. Make a family car that can hold 4 adults over 6 feet tall that does not look like a 5 year old Audi. Dump the 4.6, how many changes have been done to this engine since 1992? more than the 302 since 1968...I am a family guy, I am big, I bought a Dodge Magnum because I could fit in it, the only Ford car now made that I fit into is the Crown Vic, and I do not want to imitate a police officer. The SUV is getting a lot of negative feedback, and the Escape Hybred has no guts, does not get that great fuel mileage of a Prius, and costs $10K more! It would take 10 years to get the difference in fuel. Ford, get a clue, the F-150 lookd real good, now it looks like crap. The only sedan made that I like is the Milan, at least you got that right, but a year too late for me

The Prius doen't deliver the mileage advertised. In normal driving (AC, lights, accessories running, 65mph+) it delivers 38 mpg or so. In stop and go traffic, it does extremely well. It's more of a city car, than a suburban or rural car.

[kscoyote]

Originally Posted by tripleblack

I've been mulling over the Thunderbird since I started this thread. I didn't mention it in my review except as a line that was being terminated. Why the now-late tbird was reincarnated with a wimpy little motor is beyond me, and now that she's dead we'll probably never know. A revised Bird based upon the new Mustang platform could certainly work, with the concept for design cues coming from the 60's tbirds rather than the 50's 2 seaters. The current crop of chrome dress and grills being used on the Mercuries and 500's would mate up very well with a classy T-Bird redux. Drive train would benefit from the 5.4 from the Shelby, and yes, the price would be high but no more than base Corvette territory.

For a car that can go toe-to-toe with the Corvette, a 2 seater SVT Cobra (IRS included) should be the next all-new platform design to replace the Saleen-manufactured GT supercar. Several versions of show cars (including a nice Shelby design) are out there that could be used to base the new car.

As for the 4.6 being at the end of its line, this is debatable, given that blocks are rapidly becoming the less-important component in the power producing equation. Since the motor family is "modular", and intended to merge seamlessly in production, one displacement to another, the ability to adjust for model differentiation should be built into the design. The 5.4 right up to the monster 6.8 V10 are viable motors to build new performance models upon. The 4.6 blocks are virtually unchanged from the original 1996 Mustangs, though the 2valve heads were updated in 1999, as were the intakes, etc. With the dohc versions comprising the main variation until the current crop of 3 valve heads came along, the 4.6 family has actually been a very stable motor for Ford.

As for the size problem I resemble that remark myself. Be advised that the entire full-size line is being replaced with a "stretch" version of the Ford 500, including the Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Marauder and Crown Vic. The new cars will be detuned versions of the near-luxury Zephyr, which certainly fails to enthuse me (and, I suspect, lots of other folks). The direction Ford is taking appears to be toward an 80's Euro philosophy, with the gamble that these relatively small-but-roomy fwd replacements will fulfill the same needs met by their departed full size rwd ancestors. As near as I can tell, this is the same theory that has brought GM to the verge of bankruptcy...

You're absolutely correct about the hybrids, although the Toyotas (I have it on good authority that Toyota loses money on every one they sell) really don't get better fuel mileage than the high-gas-mileage Toyota models they are based upon. Paying a $10,000 premium to buy a car that gets the same mileage results as the same car WITHOUT the hybrid package is lunacy, of course. If you really want better mileage, go for the small Toyota or Honda you can buy with a normal drivetrain. In any event, no one seems to talk about the pollution these high-tech batteries can cause both as they're being manufactured and when they're exhausted and have to be dumped somewhere. Also, how much energy does it take to build the cars vs a normal gas or diesel vehicle? Money aside (and everyone agrees that even with preferential tax treatment and government incentives the hybrids cost more to operate over they life-span than conventional powerplants), the ecological impact study for these things remains to be done...

tripleblack

No, they were done (actually when I studied engineering my 1st three years of college), and that's why Ford went the alt fuel (flex fuel, methanol/ethanol) route. Producing the batteries is pollution intensive, as it battery recycling (what little you can recover), and disposal.

Globally speaking (from mining to production to disposal) they are actually more polluting than IC engines running renewable fuels.

[tripleblack]

ks, you are of course absolutely correct. I was dimly aware of these facts, though I was searching for the concept that we simply don't know from experience what the long-term environmental impact of junking millions of these things would be. Our experience with them out in the marketplace is really small-scale and short-lived. My rather dark suspicion is that, while the studies you mention warn of the downside, the actual problems with them in wide use may surprise us with worse-than-expected results.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, after pressuring the feds to fund a hybrid research campaign, Bill Ford would have committed his company to an asbestos-like liability nightmare?

tripleblack

Originally Posted by kscoyote

No, they were done (actually when I studied engineering my 1st three years of college), and that's why Ford went the alt fuel (flex fuel, methanol/ethanol) route. Producing the batteries is pollution intensive, as it battery recycling (what little you can recover), and disposal.

Globally speaking (from mining to production to disposal) they are actually more polluting than IC engines running renewable fuels.

[tripleblack]

I have a neighbor who has both the small Toyota (can't remember its name) and the Prius. His idea was to drive the Prius on his long daily commutes and save money, while his wife had the much cheaper little Toyota to do the errands.

Imagine his horror to discover that the cheaper standard gas Toyota was averaging almost 10 mpg better than his Prius! I suggested he swap cars with his wife, and indeed, he found he was saving money by letting her use the hybrid for her short local runs, while he buzzed down the interstates in the gas Toyota.

Of course, his dream of recapturing the cost penalty of the hybrid went up in smoke at the same time, but that's how it goes some times. Needless to say, the 2 cars are cheap to operate - just that $8,000 penalty keeps Bill awake at nights....

tripleblack

Originally Posted by kscoyote

The Prius doen't deliver the mileage advertised. In normal driving (AC, lights, accessories running, 65mph+) it delivers 38 mpg or so. In stop and go traffic, it does extremely well. It's more of a city car, than a suburban or rural car.

[kscoyote]

Originally Posted by tripleblack

ks, you are of course absolutely correct. I was dimly aware of these facts, though I was searching for the concept that we simply don't know from experience what the long-term environmental impact of junking millions of these things would be. Our experience with them out in the marketplace is really small-scale and short-lived. My rather dark suspicion is that, while the studies you mention warn of the downside, the actual problems with them in wide use may surprise us with worse-than-expected results.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, after pressuring the feds to fund a hybrid research campaign, Bill Ford would have committed his company to an asbestos-like liability nightmare?

tripleblack

Betamax was a better technology than VHS. Public opinion & perception rule, unfortunately.

It would be ironic, but I think Ford is starting to make the case for it's flex fuel engines, which they seem to have forgotten they had (the tech is older than Nasser and Billy's tenure, both).

Flex-fuels would solve a NUMBER of problems, from excess cereal production via subsidies to hog/cattle feedlot pollution when running methane.

Unfortunately, neither Ford nor GM control what's offered at the pumps.

[tripleblack]

Exactly. Hard to understand why every time someone points a mike his way Bill Ford starts calling for summit conferences to promote public funding to improve hybrids, but never even mentions the long-standing Ford commitment to multi-fuel options.

Multiple fuel capable motors are certainly not new (I worked in an Army motor pool in 1972 that had loads of military vehicles capable of running on everything from cooking oil, propane, through several grades of diesel to alcohol-laced gasoline). Of course the idea of the military application was to enable the vehicle to operate on whatever happened to be available in a tight situation.

The problem with Beta (I used to sell high end audio-video equipment back then) was pricing and the market in movie tapes. Sony sought to control it a bit too tightly, ran into serious resistance from Hollywood power brokers (not to mention a dozen or so competing electronics firms willing to sell units at a loss to ensure they undercut Sony) and just as Apple overplayed their near-monopoly position (and almost went under as a result), Sony eventually "controlled" their technology out of existance. Even after they bought their own recording studios, movie studio and record labels, it was too little too late to save Beta.

Its true that the automakers don't have much influence as to the fuel sold at the pumps, but the guvmint does. As usual, Ford is doing the RIGHT thing (proselytizing every time the bully pulpit comes their way), but promoting the WRONG idea.

Frustrating.

tripleblack

Originally Posted by kscoyote

Betamax was a better technology than VHS. Public opinion & perception rule, unfortunately.

It would be ironic, but I think Ford is starting to make the case for it's flex fuel engines, which they seem to have forgotten they had (the tech is older than Nasser and Billy's tenure, both).

Flex-fuels would solve a NUMBER of problems, from excess cereal production via subsidies to hog/cattle feedlot pollution when running methane.

Unfortunately, neither Ford nor GM control what's offered at the pumps.

[tripleblack]

Just got my first drive in the new Fusion V6 and AODE (no 5 speed offered unless you go with the dorky 2.3 fromt he Focus). Perky performance, fairly balanced/soft ride, sloppy brakes, rubber-band tranny with oddly spaced shift points (when driven with verve, as I always do). Roomy inside, nicer interior than the old tauruses and foci, low 20's price tag... If this were a 1999 intro, I'd be more enthusiastic, for that's about how far behind their competition they are.

Styling a la honda/toyota, though the salesman tried to get me to "see" the new Cadillac's crisp vertical lines, instead. Not without a powerful hallucinagen...

Current 5.0 magazine wrote up a fluffy rah-rah piece as usual, and I'm saying that anyone who confused this car for a "$35000" G35 ARE on drugs.

I predict this car will be a moderate performer in its class, with mediocre sales and a rapid aging of its "newness" in the market place.

Combined with the Ford 500, I see these two failing to replace the agregate sales (unit and $) Ford averaged from the discontinued Taurus and Crown Vic. Fleet, government and law enforcement sales in particular will drop like a stone.

I've not driven the Milan, though I have seen one (1) on the road, and its looks were close to the Fusion though with the new, ill-defined "Mercury" inprint.

Sorry, not impressed. The home team is dropping further behind the competition with every turn at bat...

[J-ROC]

ok the first thing ford needs to do is to bring back the SVT nameplate, give that treatment to almost every car in the line up.
next to compete with the dodge srt10, stuff a ford gt engien in to an f-150 and to compete with those stupid srt suvs from jeep and such just put a big v8 into the explorer.
next off kill or at least redisgn the ford 500. offer an optional v8.
next off fire all of the japanse/ chinese poeple the have in their staff and hire americans(i know it sounds racist but this is a AMERIACA COMPANY)also fire all the vegetarins they have on their staff, vegetrains dont know whats good for them
do to lincoln what gm did to cadilac.
redisgn all of the jags and make a jaguar suv to compete with the cayenns and x5s.
yeah thats it im probably forgetting something, i mean hell im 15 i forget alot of things