mustang84isu

Until they don't. We are at the tail end of bull market and people have spending freely the last few years, extending financing out to 72 months and beyond to keep monthly payments low. When interest rates rise and that bear cycle rolls around again, and buyers are forced to trim their budgets, Ford will be flat-footed with a bunch of expensive crossovers and people will look elsewhere. Tastes are cyclical and can turn on a dime. What people think is hot today may not be so tomorrow. The crossover is becoming the modern-day minivan for millennials who are starting to have families and empty nesters who are looking for ease of entry / exit. If I had to guess, we are about 5 years out from Peak Crossover before sentiment starts turning negative on the segment. Just right around the time that Ford will have fully phased out its sedan lineup. Instead of staying diversified, Ford is putting all its eggs into one basket just like in the late 1990's. And we all saw how that story ended.

What's killing me about Ford stock the last few years is that we constantly hear positive news about rising ATP, especially on F-series, in the monthly earnings reports, yet it never translates into improved margins or profit. South America, Russia, Europe, China, rising materials costs, warranty costs, recalls--something always kills any momentum the stock has during quarterly earnings. This has been going on since 2014. Now we hear that Ford doesn't profit on sedans or Lincoln, when that was the whole point of One Ford. As a shareholder I am starting to question the competency of Ford management, and I agree with the other poster that said Hackett always talks about cuts, but never talks about what he is going to do. It doesn't project confidence. You can talk about fluff stuff like mobility and where you see yourself in 5 years, but at the end of the day Ford is a product company and their average product age is higher than most other manufacturers. Now they are tying to cut their way to higher margins by saying 30% of the buying public that drives sedans should look elsewhere. I just don't see it ending well.

Not just me, but also the 5 million other people that bought sedans last year. Even if the sedan market is shrinking, walking away from it completely is a mistake. All those potential sales will go to competitors. Not everyone wants the high center of gravity, extra weight, or extra cost associated with SUVs. This is Ford overreacting like it always does, and this is why my shares have been dead money since 2014. Ford was wrong on the compact/midsize pickup market, and I have a feeling they will be wrong on this as well.

I'm not a crossover buyer, so Ford is basically telling me they no longer want my business. Dumb and shortsighted.

Beautiful. They nailed the rear 3/4 view. Everything about the lines and the details looks well thought-out; I think this is the first Lincoln reveal where I have not found something questionable or compromised in the styling. Overall, I liked the Nautilus quite a bit when it was revealed, but it looks a little dated now if you compare these two side-by-side. Lincoln has done a much better job integrating the side badging sweep. It looks less tacked on than on the Continental and Nautilus, and I like how it angles up to correspond with the mirror. These are the little details that will make the Aviator stand out next to the competition.

What is throwing me off is the 90% SUV/truck comment. Ford sold 2.6 million in the US last year; 10% of that is 260,000, which is basically Mustang and Focus combined. Hopefully Farley is exaggerating that percentage.

As a Ford shareholder I'm excited about the new product, but I am disappointed about the sedans (Fusion, MKZ, and Continental) if the speculation turns out to be true. I've never been a crossover / SUV guy and have no desire to own one personally. I will be in the market next year for a new sedan and if Ford is going to be killing everything except the Focus by 2020, I will probably have to look elsewhere. I can't believe Ford is giving up on the Continental already...it just came out last year.

I'll just let Michael do the talking on this one.

I had a 2015 Camry XSE V6 as a rental recently, and I was surprised how cheap the interior is for being an upper trim level. Between clumsy exterior design (fish mouth and blacked-out C-pillar, same tired greenhouse from 2007) and the cheap interior, there is no way I would give it 2nd place on a midsize shopping list. It feels warmed over, and it kind of is.

When I think of Lincoln's true glory days, I think of the 1930s and 1940s and streamlined modernism. Lincoln needs to convey a sense of progress and optimism, and the names should reflect that. Stuffy names like Town Car and Versailles need to stay on the shelf. I was actually looking at names of eastern seaboard coastal towns to see if something would work for Lincoln, but I didn't come up with much. Lincoln Newport sounds nice, but it makes me think too much of Chrysler. Lincoln Majestic? Lincoln Montauk? Lincoln Cosmo sounds like a good name for a C-size sedan. I'm not opposed to bringing back Zephyr for the MKZ since it has a lot of history and is not a bad sounding name to my ears.

I am excited to see what they do. I hope the split wing grille continues to evolve in shape and depth like we saw on the MKX Concept; unfortunately, the production MKX grille was watered down some. A few years ago the MKS was fairly handsome, and now it competes with the MKT for most homely in the lineup. At Detroit this year, I noticed they did a slight refresh to the back end with a long horizontal chrome bar and a void below that almost looked more Chrysler than Lincoln. Between the goofy grille, the tacky chrome bits by the rocker panels, and now this big chrome slab across the back... I can see why almost no one is buying the current model.

February 2014 was a terrible month for auto sales after a harsh month of frigid weather. The fact that Ford still declined in the YOY comparison for 2015 is disappointing. Lots of red, and the bright spots were few and far between. It sounds like fleet reductions were a big portion of the decline, so hopefully next month we will see Ford regain some ground in lost market share.

I overlaid the two in Photoshop, skewed slightly to account for photo distortion, and here is what I am noticing: Concept: smaller wheel wells Concept: A-pillar pushed back about 1" Concept: Smaller rear window, larger rear spoiler Concept: Rear 1/3 of greenhouse, slight reduction in glass area, more curve Concept: Front and rear bumpers pulled in more toward bottom, overally body length probably lost a couple inches Below is the photoshop file - it's much easier to see the differences when sliding back and forth between 0% and 100% opacity.

Agreed. There are a number of minor proportional tweaks that changed the overall feel of the MKC from concept to production. The most noticeable to me was the distance from the edge of the front wheel well to the front door cut line. Not all will notice them, but they jumped out at me. The Zephyr concept to production model had similar proportional tweaks, but it was much more noticeable.

On another note, gotta love Deutsche (Douche) Bank's downgrade of Ford today leading to a 5% haircut. All the banks seem to be dogpiling on Ford, trying to drive the price down ahead of the 2015 F-series ramp up.

What's going on with Taurus this year? I realize it is getting long in the tooth, but it's been in a freefall the last few months.

It's actually: Mustang = 8728 Camaro = 4385

Not really. About 2/3 of the models in Ford and Lincoln's lineup saw declines. The Explorer, F-Series, and Transit Connect kept April from being a dismal month. Part of it is explained by a big decline in daily rental sales, but retail sales were also down 1% in a month that should have been a recovery month from slow winter sales.

I'm older gen Y (30), and maybe it's because I live in the Midwest where public transportation is less convenient, but I only know a handful of people my age who don't own cars and choose to take public transportation instead. Most of them live in dense cities like Chicago or San Francisco where it is cost prohibitive to own a car. But I know a heck of a lot of people who post pictures of their new car on Facebook. Even my cousin who is still in high school and not the type of person I would think of as a car fanatic was pretty particular on what type of car she was going to purchase (2nd gen Ford Fusion). I don't know that automotive passion is necessarily dead among younger generations, but new car ownership is definitely delayed due to student loan debt.

Did anyone read this in Automotive News today? Lincoln plans to show a concept at the Beijing auto show on Easter Sunday, but has not set a production date. I wonder what it could be... http://www.autonews.com/article/20140417/GLOBAL03/140419824/lincoln-maps-out-china-strategy-sees-learning-lab-for-world

I thought 6,680 total Lincoln sales and 3,044 MKZ's was a pleasant surprise considering the weather and MKS, MKT, and Navigator declines sucking some of the momentum from the MKZ and MKX. The MKZ outsold the ATS by 600 units in February.

Does anyone know when the refreshed Focus will be released in North America? It seems like Focus sales have been weak for the last 6 months or so. I'm surprised the F-Series held up as well as it did. It's been so frigid and snowy here in the Midwest that I was expecting sales to take more of a hit. Despite larger Focus and Explorer drops, overall most Ford models seem to have held their own, especially when you look at how bad some of GM's declines were.

I think part of the problem is that the close up focus on the grille is causing the image to distort. It's not a flattering angle. I took the other front end teaser (the dark one) into Photoshop and lightened it (can barely see some of the details), and I'm starting to feel it more. I'll reserve judgement until we see some better pictures.

Where in the world is KBB getting 131,000 sales for Ford in the first graphic? In November 2012 Ford sold 177,000 vehicles, not the 122,000 stated. There is no way it will be 131,000 in 2013. Edmunds is predicting 182,400 for FoMoCo in November '13, which would be a 3% increase over November '12. http://www.edmunds.com/about/press/november-auto-sales-set-the-tone-for-final-stretch-of-2013-forecasts-edmundscom.html