Misteredog

Except that all current Volvos share platforms with Fords, the XC90 V70 &S60 with the Ford D3s, the S80, future V70, S60, XC70, with the new Ford Mondeo, the S40, V50, C30 & C70 with the euro Focus. In addition the new Volvo sixes are shared with Jaguar/LandRover, the new top engine in the Mondeo and Ford S Max is a Volvo 2,5 litre turbo 5 cyl. and several euro market Volvos carry Ford Duratech 4 cyls. as their base engines. The only engines which Volvo seem to have exclusively now are their 5 cyl. diesels and the Yamaha built V8. Teasing apart Ford and Volvo could be a real logistical, financial, and legal nightmare for any potential buyer. Might Ford be willing to sell it though? Yes, if the price is right. But who would be willing to buy it at that price?

Practicality in a car that is as small as a Focus does not mean a sedan, it means a hatchback or wagon. I've have zero use for a Focus sized sedan in my daily life, losing the wagon and hatch and adding the useless coupe was inexcusable. I just hope my current vehicle doesn't get totalled anytime soon because I can't affford to replace my Montego with another one or a new Sable or Taurus and there really isn't any other Ford vehicle, including the Mazda 3 and 5, which interests me. The 3 and the 5 are decent vehicles but the 3 hatch is only available with the 2.3 which gets less than stellar mileage and the 5 has a rather odd dash design that limits my knee room to a very uncomfortable degree.

I thought a Chinese firm bought the Rover name anyway.

That's what the Freestyle/Taurus X should be doing, the only problem I see with the Taurus X is that its projected tow rating is only a measly 2000 lbs.. The Volvo V 70 which is based on a platform from which the D3 was derived is rated at 3300 lbs. Why? Are Ford deliberately under-rating the towing capacities of the D3s in order to protect Explorer sales? I wouldn't be surprised.

Keep the Explorer RWD/BOF as it is and expect lower sales and adjust production accordingly. It is ridiculous to expect that its sales should remain high as they have been, the market is changing, people who used to buy SUVs as a cool alternative to a station wagon or large sedan are now buying CUVs but the BOF Explorer still remains a better choice for people who really need the towing capacity and still want a vehicle they can fit in an average garage.

The photo of a vehicle with the suicide doors is the VCC from about 4 years ago. I really doubt that Volvo is considering suicide doors (going by any name) on any of their vehicle. Suicide doors, espaecially those cool pillarless ones, are common on concept cars when the designers want to showcase the vehicle interior simply because the afford a better view of the vehicles interior when on the turntable at an auto show. Building a working vehicle with them is another matter, you nees a long wheelbase vehicle with just standard suicide doors and if you go pillarless the weight and cost penalty in order to make the car sufficiently rigid and safe in side impacts is going tobe enormous. I don't really like the new wavy character line on the new Volvo concepts, too BMWish, I prefer a more rectilinear aesthetic, especially on Volvos.

I, for one, would love to see a smaller B or C car with many of the Flex's styling cues, A B-Flex or C-Flex. It would certainly be compared to the Scion xB, but if it's done right, why not? A small but versatile vehicle with style and panache would be a welcome replacement for the old Focus wagon and should probably outsell it.

I would guess that there is going to be a base price difference of roughly $3000.00 between the Taurus X and the Flex, with the Taurus X starting around 27K and the Flex at roughly 30K, when you begin to add option the Flex will probably top out around 37 to 38K with all options whereas the Flex will be starting out at 30K and with a more extensive options list, probably topping out between 42 and 45K. That's plenty of room for differentiating the vehicles.

If only the third row were an option, I'd of gotten a Freestyle instead of my Montego for the extra cargo capacity but I didn't need or want a third row being a single guy with no kids. I could use the extra room on occasion for moving furniture of art materials. I'd much rather have the option of a large below the floor stowage compartment like on old style wagons so you could put valuables safely out of sight. I frequently drive in some places where a parked car with something that looks interesting in plain sight is likely to invite a break-in. I had the back window of my old Escort broke so someone could steal $1.20's worth of empties!

The only things I really hate about the '08 Focus are the fact that they've done away with the hatches and the wagon versions, the only models I had any real interest in, and that the coupe doesn't even look especially sporty, it just a frumpy 2 door sedan. Why didn't they at least make it fasback? A fastback hatch version in 2 and 4 door iterations with a profile someting like the Mazda 6 5 door's would have been really sweet. Instead we get an okay looking 4 door sedan which can offer no compelling reason tochoose it over a Corolla, Civic, Cobalt, etc. and a rathe awkward coupe which doesn't even look remotely sporty when compared to the Civic or Cobalt. Bold Move, eh?

Hmmm, two years ago I remember watching the Ford Doral Open golf tournament on one sunday afternoon along with my dad and counting at least two times as many Lexus ads as all the Ford LM, Jag, and Volvo ads combined! And who is gaining market share in the luxury segment? And who has been losing? I wonder why?

Translation: "We won't have to spend any money actually advertising the car, and I can get a bigger bonus instead!!"

Actually, it's the Latin word for horse, the Greek word is hippos, and in modern Greek alogo(not sure about the tranliteration). In any event equus would usually be pronounced with a short "e" as in equitable followed by "kwuss".

The new S80 is a very nice car,but the rear seat leg and foot room is still tight when you've got four six-footers in the car. It needs anonther 4" inches of wheelbase, minimum. Whatever they do with the net generation FiveHundred or its replacement I just hope they don't cut it down in vehicle height or legroom or cargo capacity, save for the slightly narrrow front footwells it's just about perfect as far as interior space goes now. The real question is how do you market it, sexiness won't sell the car so why not empasize its utter practicality and use a little humour in the process.

From what I've seen I like the concept, and I hope something resembling this does hit the road soon as a competitor to the like of the Scion xB. It's far nicer than the 2005 SYNus concept and the odd window shapes might well work if toned down a bit for production. I wonder if he hybrid powertain could be adapted to diesel or gasoline ICE as well as H2 fuel cells? If so it's even more interesting if they can get that into a reaworld production vehicle. To Watchdevil, I like the FiveHundred's greenhouse, just as I liked the greenhouse on my old '92 Crown Vic, and most Audi, Volvo, VW, and other recent Ford greenhouses. They afford great visibility in all directions and have classic flowing shape. The recent trend in many cars toward large C pillars, high beltlines and dropped rooflines is annoying to look at, and even more annoying to look out out of. In some vehicles, e.g. the Chrysler 300, the poor sightlines and large blind spots seem to present a safety issue. After a brief testdrive of a 300 I couldn't wait to exit the vehicle, navigating in a crowded urban environment or parking lot is a nightmare in one.

I have seen one white Freestyle with the a 3 bar chrome grill hiding behind the black mesh of a front end cover driving around in Dearborn. I couldn't tell if there was any change to the tail or interior though.

Whoever is making the decisions about interior colour choices needs to be replaced. I noticed that the Edge still has the same scheme the FiveHundred has when you order a lighter coloured interior e.g. the Camel on the Edge or Pebble on the FiveHundred, the top of the dash and the doors is done in the lighter shade which causes glare on the rather steeply raked windshield whie the darker trim is confined the the door insets and the lower half of the dash. Its no-functional and something very few other carmakers do, for good reason, it's backward! Uggh! It's just one of my pet peeves with Ford design which I tend to respect and like overall. Ford got it right on the Fusion, the Mercury Montego, does it right, so what's the problem with the Edge and Five Hundred?

I see ALOT of Freeestyles on the road around here, I live in Detroit, they seem to be the official vehicle of hockey mums and dads, just drive by a rink in the metro area and you'll see what I mean. I've seen quite a few with New York, Ontario, Quebec, etc. plates. The point is they seem to be selling very well regionally, as for the people who keep insisting that the Freestyle is an abject failure, I don't know what to say. It seem that in some parts of the country you simply can't get people to look at a vehicle that doesn't carry an import logo. And yeah, it is a handsome car, if in a kind of bland and WASPish way.

It's not just the 3..0 litre that needs an upgraded transmission, the 2.3 L 4 cyl. would benefit just as dramatically of not more so with an upgrade to a 5 speed or 6 speed auto.

I hope they can get someone to design better questionnaires on customer satisfaction than the one I got regarding my Montego. Most of the questions seemed to be leading and very few addressed any of my actual experiences with the car, there was more emphasis on dealer experience and financing which didn't even apply in my case, a few questions regarding reliabiliy and service, and even fewer asking about why I selected that particular model and whether it met my need as a driver or not. Asfor the "tailgate" seat on the Freestyle and Freestar, that first appeared on the Mazda MPVas I recall.

There is the same problem in metro Detroit too. At one point there were several dealers in town with ZERO Freestyles or FiveHundreds in inventory. However, the problem isn't lack of capacity in Chicago, they can build more than enough there. Ford had furloughed the plant for an extended period, and cut a shift. Why? One wonders, but I don't think it was just because of slow sales. More likely it was higher costs assoiated with the D3 platform combined with a shortage of transmisssions from Aisin which is the same 6 speed used in the more profitable Fusion et al and Mazda 6.

Building a plant may take 18 months, but when starting with a greenfield plant in the US or Canada I can assure you the process takes a hell of alot longer. There have to be environmnetal impact studies, infrastructure improvements, logistical studies, etc. And before that can begin you need to find a location, and deal with the local and state or provincial governments on tax breaks, etc. Once all that's done you might be able to make an announcement and have vehicle rolling out the door in 18 months, assuming nothing goes wrong in the meantime. Constructionis one thing, politics are quite another.

Volvo desperately needs a new production facility in North Americs if they plan on growing and so does Mazda. The question is whether to start with a green field sit somewhere down south or in Mexico which would probably take 3 to 4 years to bring on line or take over one of Ford's existing plants and make it flex and get it in production in 2 years or maybe less? Wixom has lots of room and is close to existing suppliers:)

Not to mention the Escape will cost a couple grand more and get significantly worse fuel economy than the Focus. The other alternative is the Mazda 5, a very nice vehicle, closer in price to the Focus but again with significantly worse fuel economy. Dropping the Focus wagon is a mistake. A 2dr coupe replacing the hatches is probably an even bigger mistake.

It's probably just to prevent some other competitor, e.g. Hyndai from buying the name and using it as a luxury brand or upmarket SUV brand to compete agaist LandRover and Jaguar. As it is many people in the states seem to confuse Rover and LnadRover already. The could also use the Rover name on an EUCS based car as a replacement for the X-Type, giving Jaguar dealers an entry level luxury car to sell without sullying the Jaguar name.