- 07 Aug 2007 11:57
#1287783
Ha!
Well, firstly, Ford is going through a bad time because like its competitors Chrysler and General Motors, and like the japanese zaibatsus in their time, it had turned into a gigantic corporation, way beyond the automobile industry, and most notably in the domain of internal social security services, whose model is not adapted to the economic time we're going through. It's a structure problem, before being a problem of incompetence, or a problem of bad product policy, or whatever.
I'm confident that once the necessary adjustments are made (ie putting the focus back on being a car manufacturer, and modernizing its production process - cause that's actually where the Japanese are ahead, their product plan being just the same) Ford will be healthy again. Cause when you look at it, its problems are few, as only the North American branch is in trouble: Mazda, Ford of Europe, Volvo, all these are totally profitable and acclaimed by the press and the public all around the world.
And even in North America, things are going better. The sales were in the green for this summer, and they're launching several new models to renew their line up, to get out of the SUV niche that, although culturally strong in terms of "Look at me I'm American cause I build SUVs", was a commercial dead-end.
Their idea to sell the prestigious brands that Ford offered itself in the 1980's in a frenzy of zeal isn't a bad idea in essence, it's just sad to see that they're victims of the circumstances. If Ford had time (something it doesn't have right now, because of the dictatorship of shareholders) it could work on the long term and do something great with these brands, namely Jaguar and Land Rover since Aston Martin has been sold, and since they want to sell Volvo (which is in this case a very unproductive idea, given all the technical synergy Ford has with Volvo - a good half of its American line-up is based on Volvo underpinnings).
Look, it took twenty years to make Aston Martin go profitable and be an unavoidable brand in the world of supercars! And even now, see all the work done with Jaguar and Land Rover.
To come back to Ford of America, it will take some discussion with the workers' unions, some painful sales of this or that branch of the company, and of course new products, more adapted to the new Europeanized demand in North America. Mullaly has already said that US Fords will get much closer to European Fords by 2010-2012, until then the actual line up should hold strong as Ford releases new sedans and crossovers.
On the whole their cars are great, they've always been setting the trend (as a whole with of course Fordism) in design (the baroque of the 1970's in the US, the aerodynamics of the Sierra and Taurus, the Edge design of the Focus, the Kinetic design of the S-Max) and in technology. They have an awesome history in racing and street muscle cars all across the globe (FPVs in Australia, Shelbys in the US, Cosworth in Europe).
Its history is punctuated of legendary names: Mustang, Capri, Thunderbird, Cougar, Continentals, Torino, Falcon, Sierra Cosworth, Focus RS, ...
They're a brand that conveys dreams, images, icons! It doesn't just sell cars. It makes wonderful objects of desire!
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