jpd80

Cheers HRG, I hear you, keeping my options open for now.

Thanks everyone, I have enough just enough in retirement fund and some cash to make it work (not rich by any means) Funny thing is my employer is open to casual 40 hours a fortnight but I dunno, would pay for a nice 347… It was pointed out to me that every extra year you work in your 60s is one less golden year in retirement.

Retiring at the end of the year, I have a ‘91 Fairmont 5.0 in the shed with fresh engine think RWD V8 that looks like a Taurus…

Correct, from its inception as a compliance utility, the idea was to use C2 bodies with additional aluminum front, middle and rear cradles that approximate a GM skateboard approach. Using the C-Max as the starting point really screwed things up, out of date data strikes again but, If Field had started GE1 with the right C2s at development (Focus and Escape) there wouldn’t have been the near doubling of costs to add a Mach E crossover…maybe even Lincoln versions of all three? It absolutely galls me to see how Ford Eng “sabotaged” its own efforts, I wonder if some of it was done in a way to make it look less obvious and to a accentuate why BEVs weren’t ready for prime time.

Logistics and costs. Flat Rock was supposed to get a new $500 million paint plant quite some time ago (cancelled) The issue with low height vehicles goes to available clearance with running height of overhead conveyors and the distance between skillet floor and connection to the conveyor, all of that need to increase if you want to build taller vehicles. Assuming body shop and coating dip step are not difficult to reconfigure….The big issue has been Ford’s lack of investment, they were hoping that S550/S650 we’re economic platform upgrades not requiring much to be done to Flat Rock.

Indeed, Jac Nasser was positioning Taurus as a Falcon Rrplacement and ordered that Australia would take 10,000 of them whether they wanted them or not. So in order to ward off the challenge, the next version of the Falcon (AU) was made to look more like the Taurus.

Actually, the historical flow of ideas went the other way around: rather than replacing the Australian Falcon with the American Ford Crown Victoria, Ford briefly looked at using the American Taurus and Crown Vic to replace an aging Falcon in the mid-1990s, and later, Australian proposals heavily pushed sending the Aussie Falcon to the U.S. and Middle East to replace the Crown Victoria

Many luxury buyers are not rusted on, if they don’t see a real reason to keep buying a particular brand/model, a lower priced alternative that ticks many of the boxes is always an easy option for the right company.

Couldn agree more. The 2.7 EB worked brilliantly up against the 3.0 diesel opposition from Jeep, so popular with Ford buyers choosing it and getting a more efficient little engine. The 3.0 is just a natural progression now that the 3.5 EB has grown in power. Ford is definitely leaving the base competition behind. The one place I would change is with Mustang, offer the 3.0 EB V6 as a throw back to the Early Euro Ford Capri, team it with PHEV to get it across tighter Euro/Aussie fuel economy and emissions regs, could be the path forward in those markets more than the 2.3.

1.0 EB switched to a timing chain by early 2019 2.0 diesel switched YM 2026

I’m still wondering if the UEV’s open box build and simplified electrics is a pathway for replacing C2, the UEV + range extender could be a way to reorganise products and eliminate a lot of C2’s inherent expensive construction costs…gotta be a way of having your cake and eating it too…

And that Makes sense Fuzzy, I get a little annoyed at the spin I see on certain YouTube videos regarding dealerships loaded up with older plate high series trucks and SUVs. I smile because we all know that every one of those vehicles will get sold eventually and Ford will still make a profit on them.

Agree, Pretty obvious Ford selling the base RWD Fathom for a sub $30k MSRP, that’s the headline it wants and you’re right, drive away price will be more, so will AWD and long range battery. Even so, a sub $40K drive away price would be very appealing to the buyers that Ford is really after.

That and to Ford’s credit, F Series 68,000 sales achieved with tight inventory (186,000) The only way the active that was with good forward inventory planning and not excess building of trims that subsequently had to be heavily discount….

Remember with the Mustang coupe, rear passengers sit between the wheel tubs a sedan usually requires three across rear seating forward of the wheel wells.

V8 Supercar Mustangs are running the 5.4 Coyote in Australia, sounds great

Ford missed their chance with a RWD Continental twinned with a Ford sedan, I feel like this keeps rearing its head to satisfy people that want to see it but maybe not buy?

I suspect that was at the root of it but whatever it was, there certainly didn’t seem to be much feedback…

I’m wondering if the 3.0 EB PHEV is worth another try as an apex product or whether that ultimately hurts Navigator Sales…interesting interplay there

To me this is a scales of economy thing much like the 6.8/7.3 Godzilla, it's easier to make the one engine and maybe offer a couple of tunes, maybe with and without hybrid/site power? Its more about Ford simplifying manufacturing and getting savings with fewer parts variations but sad to see the 2.7 go…..it was a great engine. puely speculation here, I wonder if that engine (2.7 V6) makes it way to South Africa as an option on international Ranger as a better PHEV vs Chinese competition?

Our Aussie experience with the PHEV Ranger is confusing and probably not indicative of How America sees hybridisation as the next step with gasoline powertrains. So yes, Ford US will be armed with what works for its market and I think the battery size for on site power vs a prevented PHEV may be where the sees spot is for sales. Aussie market is different, the PHEV needs to become diesel replacement as post 2028, diesel pickups here will be almost impossible to sell because of emissions/economy regs basically mandating PHEV as a minimum…wonder if this is similar to California and aligned states emissions legislation?

I hope Ford sees a change of luck soon and it starts seeing more cash coming in for making so many of those changes to stop the bleeding. Some encouragement for doing what’s right…..

And perhaps GM pushing harder with its BOF plant and SUV sales also allows Ford to do the opposite with its F Series plants and make far more money with them? (that give and take I mentioned before that’s no always obvious)

While I agree with most of what you say, Ford put themselves in a box by only having three plants to make F Series and the SUVs and that also comes from prioritising crew cab pickups as premium products long before GM did and even to this day, GM pushes much harder with those BOF SUV sales than Ford….shoots and ladders or is Ford missing truly missing out against Cadillac and Tahoe/ Yukon Denali? It’s also the reason why Ford could not manage Performance Auto Group, chasing after those premium customers with regular and expensive upgrades is hard to justify when your primary sales market is the level below… In the past Ford has spent a ton of money on Lincoln variants but criticised for less differentiation for the money spent. Ford is getting better at this, the current versions seem to be much better.

Yes and no, please bear with me, I didn’t mean reskin as a put down of the efforts done and it could be argued that a deep reskin achieves nearly as much as a different tophat, normally a wheelbase change seals it. The Lincoln Navigator is best described as a clever and deeply executed re-skin of the Ford Expedition, sharing the same truck-based heavy-duty foundation, core architecture, and mechanical hard points, but elevated with a unique top-hat design, exclusive sheet metal, and bespoke luxury appointments. The Lincoln Aviator is a clever, heavily upgraded reskin with unique mechanical and luxury differentiators rather than just a simple badge-engineered top hat. While it shares the same core rear-wheel-drive-based platform, wheelbase, and structural hard points as the Ford Explorer, Lincoln separates the Aviator with unique sheet metal, an exclusive standard twin-turbo V6 engine, and distinct luxury hardware. The Lincoln Corsair is a clever, heavily upgraded and exceptionally well-differentiated reskin of the Ford Escape on the shared C2 platform, featuring unique sheetmetal, distinct luxury powertrains, and a dramatically quieter, higher-tech cabin. C2 Edge vs C2 Nautilus- this is where the story differs and I would agree with your observation of a dedicated top hat due to different wheelbase. Scales of economy have played an important part in limiting the funding for the above - I would love to see Lincoln go another step better and challenge Cadillac as well as BMW & MB (6.8 Navigator with LWB? and the Lincoln “Bronco” with 3.0 EB)