F250

Congratulations. The reason was you agreed with Richard and not me so I took a shot. Was in jest though. Henry Ford held no degree of any kind the man was self taught and made a massive positive impact on history. By the way Orville and Wilbur Wright didn't either and they were pretty smart as well.

Oh yea, I forgot about those. Y'all should know my abrasive sense of humor by now. Yea I know, I know educated critical people will point out that this is not a picture of our planet in our galaxy because we have no means of taking such a picture of our own galaxy. This is Andromeda I think but you get the idea.

Richard lighten up, he was bragging and I made a wise crack about it. I assure you if I had intended a personal insult I could have done much better than that. I know he was agreeing with you and you are defending but you know all he had so say was " I agree Richard." If someone asks me what's wrong with their car I don't brag about my education my certifications and my years of experience before I advise them. Gentlemen don't brag.

I liked the roadster version ...but you know the Crossfire only existed because Chrysler was criminally incompetent. LOL...sorry I had to. If the Crossfire is too conservative how about finding a nice Plymouth Prowler! Now that was a wild roadster. Call it anything but boring. .

Ah yes the Chrysler Crossfire! In 2011 IIRC we were repairing a Crossfire with very minor damage and needed a left headlamp assembly. There were none available anywhere. Aftermarket didn't make them yet and Chrysler backordered them for months. Literally the poor SOB's car sat there unusable for months waiting on one damn headlamp. And it cost over a grand when it finally was available. That's the risk of owning such a car.

I am so impressed by people that brag about their degrees. Do you know how many degrees Henry Ford held? He was a pretty smart fellow as well wouldn't you agree?

Well said! Thank you.

Well I got to drive the Sky today! Why? Because the tires i ordered arrived, mounted & balanced them shot an alignment then ran it over to our Chevy store to program an extra remote with their scan tool, Yea, that's why I get to drive it. LoL Anyway for a few of you car guys here are some suspension shots that explain why it handles so well but not why it only sold for $25k new, Note all control arms are aluminum and the Bilstein shocks. This is a standard 2.4L not the Red Line turbo, And why did I replace the tires when the previous owner replaced the factory Goodyears with new crappy Chinese Runway Enduro 619s that still had 7/32 tread depth? Because he wasted his money on Chinese tires that were only 3 years old and were already cracking and making noise. And I love these plant stickers

Thanks, If you were closer than half a planet away I'd sure as hell buy you a beer or two.

A stretch but OK. So who are you guys really? I mean the self-importance the massive egos...are y'all like retired millionaire automotive executives killing time on the internet? I feel like I've been arguing with John Delorean. Surely with your vastly superior knowledge of the car business you have made your millions running a real corporation.

Oh, so that's the formula for business success. Well then I'm getting quite an education from the experts. I have one more question for the masters: If the Ford GT was cheap to build and profitable why did Ford cancel it after a short 3 years? Chevrolet has the Corvette and Dodge has the Viper why not keep the cheap and profitable GT in constant production?

I think you need a drink Richard. Or a fun top down drive in the country...want to borrow the Sky?

We've only owned it a few days but if I can get my wife out of the Sky I can take a few more pictures. She's been in a Jeep so long she has now rediscovered the fun of a great handling car on a winding country road.

I'll say this and then let it go (maybe). You and Richard are Ford Fanboys, I get it. Ford can do no wrong and GM is the devil. It's like the Ford vs Chevy kids in high school all grown up. But at least a high school gearhead talks about the CARS you know, style, performance etc and not the "business case." Well I got some news for you fellas Ford lost money on every 289 & 427 Cobra that they built in the 1960's but those (and many others) were legendary to us "car guys" and on paper dismal failures to you "business guys." By the way I am disappointed that you business guys have not proven your claim that the GT supercar was dirt cheap to design and build, I would have expected numbers and links to prove your case but the reality is you have none. I expected some backlash posting that I bought a GM vehicle on a Ford forum but was surprised by all the positive responses, thanks fellas. I'm a Ford enthusiast first that's why I've been hanging around this forum stirring things up so long. But my hang-up is that I like American cars Ford, GM, Chrysler the old AMC I even owned an International Harvester Scout II built in Indiana. But I care for very few foreign cars with the possible exception of a few British roadsters...

Of the three publicly traded companies Ford is unique in that the Family remains in control, that could have made the difference. If I'd been in charge of GM I'd have kept only Chevrolet, Saturn and Caddilac and dumped the rest. keeping select products from each terminated brand to make the best lines possible for the three.

It's perfect that you deleted the critical comments I made about Ford when you quoted me. That pretty much is what I'm talking about here, the point is Ford, GM and Chrysler ALL lost their way and each paid the price for their shortsightedness. Ford fortunately got the turn around started just early enough to avoid bankruptcy. Wake-up call? New leadership just in time? ...Or just lucky? What happened to Saturn you ask? The same thing that happened to Mercury.

Some examples of the Ford GT's "cheap engineering" : "The Ford GT features many new and unique technologies, including super-plastic-formed aluminum body panels, roll-bonded floor panels, a friction-stir welded center tunnel, a “ship-in-a-bottle” gas tank, a capless fuel filler system, one-piece door panels and an aluminum engine cover with a one-piece carbon-fiber inner panel." All for only 4,000 cars. The Kappa's engines, transmissions and many other parts like the HVAC module were borrowed from other regular production GM vehicles, not so the GT. Note the capless fuel filler did make it to production on regular production cars. Let's not revise history here by 2005 Ford had lost 25% market share in 8 years. That's why their third restructuring plan was previewed in Dec 2005 and announced Jan 2006 called "The Way Forward." The plan shut down 7 assembly plants (one of them Wixom the GT's plant) 7 parts plants and eliminated 28% of Ford's employees. The only good news was they also dumped all of the damn PAG Eurotrash. Finally in Sep 2006 Mulally replaced Bill Ford and had to borrow $23.6 billion by mortgaging all of Ford's assets. All while Ford GTs were rolling off the Wixom assembly line and sharing space in showrooms with 7-year old Tauruses.

Interesting math. The Ford GT original msrp was $139,995. That means the dealers paid less than that to buy them from Ford. If dealers got big adjusted market values from there (and that only happened when they were first released) then the dealer kept that extra profit not Ford.

Maybe you should Google the definition of roadster. The convertible Corvette definitely fits the definition. Mustang etc aren't because they have 4 seats.

Oh, I thought you said "If there was a business case for Kappa then we'd have a Chevy roadster today." I thought you said it because you did.

No rain, discussion that's what the forum is about. I thought the XR4TI / Sierra was quite popular in Europe.

Ford GT was cheap to engineer and build? Flag on the play here. And from it's 2004-2006 run what outstanding sedan was Ford offering? The 4th generation 2000-2007 Taurus and the old 500. Glass houses fellas. Pardon the pun.

You mean besides the Corvette of course.

Remember while GM was wasting money on Kappa Ford was wasting money building the Ford GT supercar at a time when Ford was in a near death financial crisis of their own. By the way Kappa was sold globally in Europe as Opel GT and Korea as Daewoo. Mazda Miata Mx5 has failed to sell more than 8k units in the U.S. for each of the last 5 years. Down from their 36k peak in 1990 during the Ford psrtnership years.