it's about fucking time, ford

i guess after blowing through a few billion dollars in a quarter and giving away pickups for free, they've had a revelation.


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Finally, Ford Sees the Light
Push to Make Smaller Cars
With Better Fuel Efficiency
Is Aimed at Curbing Losses
July 25, 2008; Page C12

It is easy to lose count of the restructuring plans coming from Detroit's car makers. Still, the latest wrinkle in Ford Motor's turnaround saga could be the most significant. It also is the most obvious: Shift to selling smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

It has been a long time coming. Ford and rivals Chrysler and General Motors have clung to the outsize profit from selling gas-guzzling trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Cars often seemed of secondary concern: While the 1970s oil crises forced improvements, U.S. manufacturers still produced models that consumed more fuel than their foreign competitors, even as Toyota Motor and others started taking market share.

Many vehicles built by Motown's Big Three still struggle to best the 25 miles a gallon some enthusiasts reckon they can, even now, squeeze out of the iconic Ford Model T that first went on sale 100 years ago.

Recent events have changed the outlook of Ford boss Alan Mulally and his team. The U.S. housing crunch and a spike in oil prices have blighted consumer appetite for big, gasoline-quaffing vehicles. That led to a $8.7 billion second-quarter loss for the Motor City company.

So Ford is retooling three of its truck and SUV plants to make smaller cars, and it is ending its policy of U.S. isolationism. Six of the respected and fuel-efficient models produced by its European arm will be brought across the pond. Currently, even when they share a name, they are different cars. Ford, it seems, may finally be on the verge of having an integrated global platform.

The move appears to put Ford's turnaround ahead of GM's. Ford still faces falling sales and continuing losses. But there might be another European model worth looking at. Fiat, the once-struggling Italian car maker that underwent a similar revamp several years ago, put out encouraging results this week. If that is any indication, Ford is at least on the right track.

Oil Drop Coming Too Late?

A barrel of oil cost less than $124 Thursday, a 15% decline since July 14. For those worrying about rising prices, the declining trend is welcome, despite Thursday's tiny bounce. Still, it is too little and too late to slow inflationary pressures much.

Sure, upward pressure on gasoline prices should ease within days or weeks. But they still will be high. After all, the crude-oil price has dropped back only to where it was two months ago -- when it seemed almost unbearably expensive -- and still is roughly 70% more costly than a year ago.

Also, while oil prices are softening, other energy-related prices are rising. The prices of natural-gas contracts mostly follow the oil market, but usually with a six-month lag. Electricity price increases are even slower, as they mostly require regulatory approval. Consumers eventually will pay for more expensive oil in everything from plastic packaging to imported Christmas-tree ornaments, but increases can take a year or more.

This gradual effect can be seen as a simple process of inventories working through the system. But there may also be a subtler monetary undercurrent, as economists Frank Browne and David Cronin of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland have argued.

When money supply expands, customers bid up prices across the board. Historically, commodity prices have been the first to rise, because they are the most flexible. The two economists suggest that other prices have followed, even when commodity prices fall back. Eventually, everything ends up costing about the same proportion more than before the money supply increased.

One price is particularly important for future inflation -- the price of labor. If workers can negotiate pay increases that keep up with the cost of living, they will keep the inflationary ball rolling. It looks like employees everywhere will be able to collect lots of evidence over the next few months to support their case.

It's just mind-blowing that American car enthusiasts have been pleading for so long to have Ford bring some of their hot small cars over hear from Europe, and they're just now getting around to it.

The Explorer truck plant here in the Ville is getting converted. I wonder what kind of a culture shock that will be for the people working there.

Well Ford is still hellbent on building F150s because it's supposedly the best selling truck in the world. I think they need rethink drivetrains for the trucks and definitely bring in some European Fords.

Bring on the Mazda2!

It makes perfect sense. Ford USA is a joke losing billions of dollars a year. Ford Europe is one of the most respected car brands around and every car they make in every market they're in is at or near the top of the class. So, what do you do? Isolate the European brand and keep making the US stuff. Obviously


They shouldn't need a 'plan' to realise this was the way forward

i've seen people tow boats in ford mondeo 2.0 diesels . . .
this magicly means you can't possibly haveu need for something bigger. .

dear ford:

BRING THE FUCKING KUGA TO THE US.

fuckers.

Aristotle wrote:dear ford:

BRING THE FUCKING KUGA TO THE US.

fuckers.

i strangly dislike thu Kuga marketing. "designed with a carte blanche for the designers, not like everything else on the road, dare to be different" bullshit. it looks like every other ford. . . but on a faggot ass suv platform.





according to the ford dealer it's because i have a special car. i told him that according to the marketing, the kuga was the only special car. . . the dealer told me he didn't do the marketing, but said it looks pretty different to most other cars. i told him yeah, just like one black man looks different than another black man, but in the end, all black men look the same. he chuckled, we agreed, and i left with two brake discs for a ford granada :)

good story

Aristotle wrote:good story

true story, too.

that's why it's good.