goingincirclez

I've always thought the Highlander looks like a cheap Grand Cherokee knockoff (another Toyota "design yoink"). Always looked bigger than the Freestyle to me and I could never understand why the two were compared. It was rushed to compete with the Explorer and then suddenly, oh, it's not!

Wow, an overall positive review. The comment about wind noise was interesting, as my in-laws bought a used Freestyle and I was actaully surprised at how noisy it seemed. Nice to see that addressed. I do think the styling changes will help. I never thought the Freestyle was "bad"... just bland... but the Taurus X does look more refined and I love the uptick in the headlights. I no longer have reservations on the styling like I did the Freestyle. There IS one, HUGE flaw that deeply concerns me, however: What gives with the paint on the bumper cover? It doesn't even come close to matching! If THIS is what Ford's new attention to fit, finish, and quality is giving us - on a loaded, near $40K vehicle no less! - I really do have concerns for them that I didn't before.

:censored: Man, that just really pisses me off, even more so than I already disliked Toyota. Now I want to take a sledge to every one that I see. Do they not have a SINGLE BRAIN CELL for an IOTA of original thought? Is it not enough for them to primarily rip off other designs (primarily Ford's at that), and desperately spin and weasel their way into the "American Way".... now they have to rip off Ford's damn ADVERTISING as well??? W.T.F! Must.... resist.... Georgetown is only a half-hour from here.... (If I do something to get myself arrested later on, I'm blaming you, Rich. You just HAD to throw that up there! )

Yeah, I should have been clearer, because I knew about those cars you cited... but I like how Ford just tied the head and driving lights together, yet still broke up the grill area with some color. Truth be told, I don't much car for the new VW treatments. Looks too much like a "fish-pok mouth" to me. The Ford on the other hand, looks like Zorro... or something.

Mewants. NOW. Gardamn is that blackmask treatment original, fresh, and surprisingly awesome looking too. Who came up with that one? I love it. That "base model chop" is great too!

Thank you for proving my point! It is a subjective matter of further design refinement (or lack of it). There was a reason I posted that 2007 Corvette: from wheel to fascia, it does have a pronounced overhang. But you don't notice it because they added a bit of sculpting to create a recessed curve at the bottom edge. So yes, it is an illusion. But if you are going to buy into illusions, then you must realize that photo of the Edge, is a dead-straight profile shot, with hideous black bumpers. It will look nicer from an angle, and with some color to break it up. Also, you really cannot sculpt round corners and llusional trickery into a car whose design is was inspired by a kleenex box. Then you have a conflict of language. But I stand by my statement with photographic proof: in terms of dimensions, the overhangs are NOT the problem. The rest of the design... the "box language" in this case, may be. For the record I happen to like it... but then I always liked the County Squire as well (because they won every demo derby I saw one in, and there were plenty of those) :shades:

My point was that overhangs do not necessarily make or break a car's design, desiribility, or timelessness. But since you still want to play: (Check out the rear of that new BMW 5-series! Is it 1960? ) Once again... if the Flex has a subjective design/aesthetics problem, it's NOT in overhangs. Meelaan at least tried to explain his position further. Thanks for playing!

"ZOMG OVERHANG OVERHANG OVERHANG!!!" :beatdeadhorse: Is "overhang" the secret word at PeeWee's Playhouse this month? Sheez, just give it a rest already: So there's a gallery of cars, likely at least one of which most of you (to your own individual taste) would be more than happy to own, ALL of which, by the carrying on here, have "ridiculous overhangs" - even more so than the Flex in some cases. :rolleyes: This concludes today's lesson. If you're going to criticize the Flex's styling, find a new design buzzword to harp on.

Wasn't Ford going to actually start visibly badging their PZEV vehicles as such?? If not, then WHY NOT START? I mean, sheez... whether E85 will save us all or not, GM has been milking that one lately and yet Ford had the first sizable fleets of E85-capable vehicles (Taurus and Ranger) a decade ago. Speaking of which, they should revive that "FFV" logo. I always thought that was clever and cool, and it would speak to the new crop of "eco-wannabes" who missed it the first time, you know, because it wasn't "celebrity cool" back then.

Exactly. That's how they gained their momentum, by dumping and undercutting. Everyone knows they sold those cars for a LOSS the first few years. And in doing so they managed to not only leapfrog their other japanese pseudo-luxury competition (Infiniti, Acura) but ultimately caught even the germans off-guard. The cars spoke for themselves and allowed them to raise the prices later. The fact they are applying this philosophy retroactively to the Tundra doesn't mean squat. They can AFFORD to sell their truck at a loss because they have a cash pile, and their cars make up the money besides. Detroit does NOT have this luxury. True. They did not have a White Elephant for Lexus staring them dowm. Just a new plant in a little place called Gerogetown, KY that was also new at the time. And they played patiently with the Camry, as they had to, because the domestics were stronger back then. They are no longer, which brings us back to... See #1. You don't need to incentivize a car that you're ALREADY giving away! And if they truly wanted to be taken seriously in the Luxury market (which we know they did and do), they surely knew that incentives are a no-no. How do you tink GM feels about their shiny new Silverado? Pride is a deadly sin, and they'll have to do something. Read my reply to #1 again. If Toyota is worried about losing a little face for now, in the long run it doesn't matter. They'll cut their nose to save their face. By applying pricing pressure to the domestics' truck lines, they're going for thier last pumping jugular. In the long run, it's not about a shiny plant in Texas or "devaluing" the Tundra (in similar fashion to how Lexus was initially "devalued"). What is so hard to see about that? The new plant in Texas is all the more incentive to them, to build and sell every Tundra they can, no matter the cost. You know the press will give them a pass and just look at total sales anyway. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that Toyota's incentives have about as much long-term effect on the domestics' trucks, as the domestics' "employee pricing" incentives did to japanese cars. Which is of course to say: none. Unfortuantely, even back then the domestics were facing an extremely hostile market perception, and were too financially weak to sustain the giveaways for long enough to make the japcos match. Toyota, on the other hand, has none of those concerns.

Holy shit... I've never seen a car tinfoiled like that before... and I've seen plenty of WTFmobiles on copart in my day....

"Tundra, meet Lexus... his dusty old 1989 playbook will be your gameplan from now on." :unsure:

Black hood or no, is that red color in the photo one of Ford's stock offerings? My personal preference for a suped-up ride is something a little more low-key and dark. Say like black or midnight blue, maybe even dark green. Blackhorse, good call on getting the wheels. I've never been much of a wheel buff but I'd probably get something that would work good with a set of Pirellis. Wonder what Steeda's markup is on their provided sets.

WTF? Lose all the stupid billet "caps" (seriously, they listed those under "powertrain"? Billet, Bling, whatever, it all smells like rice to me). And as you said, ditch the interior crapola and badging, and even the stupid paint job. Distill to the true performance add-ons and then MAYBE a stock-colored body kit, sell it all for $3K and I'm there. Sleepers rule....

Also known as "The DaimlerChrysler Bluff"... :unsure: I'm sure all business "review operations" behind closed doors in secret as a matter of due course. I mean, that's how you RUN a BUSINESS. For there to be a more public, tacit admission of such, would seem to imply there's a little more to the story. At the very least, you can't help but think so. It's not "business as usual" if someone has to assure you it is.

No kidding. I thought of this one time. SO, you get your nice paycheck and see one or more of the following taxes on income: - FICA - state - local/municipal) That for most people amounts to about 30% on average, give or take. Then of the remaining 70%, depending on what you do with it, some or all of the following may apply - sales tax (by-bye additional 6-9 %) - luxury tax (variable) - sin, entertainment, convenience, travel, and/or more and/or others -> as defined by the whims and demands of local authorities. On things like booze, tobacco, junk & fast food, event tickets, hotel rooms, airline tickets... need I go on - "use" taxes (god I just love this one) Of course even if you try to extend the middle to the feds and spend as little as possible, you still have basic necessities to meet. And those are taxed: - food (sales at the very least; plus there are taxes on specific kinds) - phone service taxes - electric service taxes - auto registrations (a tax by a different name) - Tollway fees (come on, there aren't ever any alternate routes are there?) - Gasoline taxes And if you're going to save the rest, be careful to avoid the taxes on: - capital gains, dividends - early withdrawls - real estate / property taxes (another BIG chunk after that 30% for most people) And even if you're stone cold hardcore and just stuff all your money in a mattress in a cardboard shack, the wonderful estate tax sees to it that they still take theirs when all is said and done. Hell, I'm by no means a financial wizard but those are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head...

I don't remember specifics in terms of exact pricing. If I had more time here I would try to look it up. But, I do recall the general knock against the Contour - and no small reason why it ultimately failed - is that it was TOO expensive for its physical size in the market at the time. It was priced closer to a Taurus, but not really much bigger than the Escort. In fact, it was claimed that an Escort (4-door) had MORE interior room! Let's repeat - Escort sizing at Taurus prices. Didn't work then... probably wouldn't work now. So you can see how the precedent has been set for the whole "Mondeo would never work in the US" argument. Myself, I'm not so sure. But Ford does NOT have a good track record here. Hey, maybe the eigth time would be the charm but the original 70's Merc Capri, the Sierra and Scorpio (as Merkurs), the Contour, and even the Aussie Capri didn't exactly leave great legacies to build from. I did drive a Contour a few times... great car. MUCH better than an Escort in terms or ride and handling and to me that would have been worth the price. But then we get into that "a handful of enthusiasts does not a company float". Also Remember how the Contour SVT got RAVES in spades? Yeah, so there's your forebearer to a USA C1 Focus ST... and what happened to it?

The heavy truck business is highly cyclical. There is a boom time in the industry now as fleet owners and lease companies were rushing to fill orders for new trucks to be grandfathered in under tougher EPA regs... and then sales will fall off a cliff for a time once those orders are fulfilled. Heck that may have already happened. The raison du jour may change, but the whole industry has historically been boom-and-bust in that fashion. So they may be making money hand over fist today but in a couple years they won't, just like they weren't a few years ago. It's not much different from the domestic car business in that regard. And they have a LOT less overhead to deal with. Same could be said for why GM finally sold off the EMD railroad locomotive division... although in their case they had badly mismanaged EMD in the last 15 years or so. I still think Ford should have held onto the class 8 business though. The Aeromax was a beautiful truck and the whole line lent a bit of cachet to Ford's status as a FULL-LINE truck maker. $300M was a pittance, but then it doesn't seem that DCX (Freightliner / Sterling) did much with it.

Well, although I did have Taco Bell recently, I assure you it's the latter. :shades: The front brakes on that car were never great, and in the shape all four were *actually* in... yeah. During that incident they slowed the car yes, but wouldn't stop it completely. Plus, having to drive around with cooking brakes among other problems won't do you much good either. Note, I said that was one of the last times I drove the car, and the brakes were but one reason. That incident made me face the sad sad reality: "All good things..."

This also happened to me a few years ago, during one of my last "shake the rust off" maintenance drives of my '88 before it more or less parked itself for good. Approaching some railroad tracks, I removed my foot off the gas with the intent to coast toward them, knowing the car should normally have slowed to an appropriate crossing speed. Instead, the car continued to accelerate and rather than investigate the cause, my immediate concern was with bracing for the tracks themselves... after it bounded over them rather jarringly, it accelerated further on the downslope impact. Braking was not enough to fight it after that. Now I'd run through this scenario in my head several times over the years, and had even applied the e-brake a couple times just to familiarize myself with what would happen. But even that amount of preparation was not enough to stave the initial throes of "oh shit" panic that ran through my head for the first few moments. You just never expect it! In the end, I regained my composure as I was approaching traffic ahead of me, drove the car into a retail parking lot easement and shifted to neutral and turned off the ignition - I thankfully was prepared for the lack of power steering at that point and managed to steer accordingly. I honestly think some controlled, reckless experimentation can be a good thing - donuts and/or aggressive cornering in empty parking lots; random e-braking; etc. That's the way to get experience and know how your car will handle, and how YOU will respond instinctively. Even then you can still be caught off guard in the real world. Hopefully, CYA lies aside, these girls learned something from the experience. (What had happened in my case was the throttle body cable got bound up in the sleeve... it would not spring back to idle on its own, but would jostle forward (accelerate) easily. I still have no idea just HOW that happened, but I was able to manually release it and drive back home.)

When I bought the '97 T-Bird sport, all it needed was tires. So I allowed myself to be oversold a set of Pirelli 8000 Z's... yeah the car would never go that fast but I wanted to try something more fun, and... ... holy SHEEEEEEEIT that car was a whole different beast with those tires! They would not slip for anything; wet traction was GREAT and I could sling and toss that heavy car around as much and far as I dared. Ohh it was a blast. The best part is they were rated for 40K but I got 75K thanks to religious rotation and not burning them out "too" often. :shades:

Hear hear, can I get an amen? It's not whatcha got, it's how you use it (Heh heh). As someone who chased down - and got a thumbs up from - an older Porsche 911 while driving a 1990 Ford Aerostar myself, I can attest to that. (Yes, that was stupid but oh what a blast; he could have dropped it anytime but I was working traffic like Earnhardt Sr.) Anyhow, I agree that the whole paper-racing sedan thing is just retarded and overblown. Would I LIKE a high-performance sedan? Hell ya. Do I NEED one? Hell no. People are get all bent out of shape about performance numbers... while non-coincidentally we are facing an energy crisis. People get all giddy about hybrids and compacts getting 35+ MPG while taking drastic (and often questionable) steps to achieve that. Well, my 1988 Thunderbird V6 was a fully-loaded luxobarge. It had every creature comfort one could ask for, including some not commonly seen today. The only thing missing was airbags, otherwise you could still sell one brand-new and never know the difference. It weighed almost 3400 pounds - and still got 33MPG highway. It did this with a godawful 140HP 3.8 v6 - a spec that would get your ass plattered by today's standards, but I never once was starved for much more power in that car. If I wanted more it was because I was trying to do something I shouldn't have been. But when it came down to senses, I still drove from Chicago to KY in 5 hours - the same as any new car high-hp paper-racer will today. Imagine if instead of this horsepower arms race, the manufacturers put their advances in engine technology toward maintaining the reasonable status quo, netting huge gains in efficiency instead? We'd all be better off. The same holds true for my '97 Bird's woeful stock 205HP V8. So I couldn't race a new Camry. So fucking what? Why should I (or you) ever need to? I guarantee I probably make my Chicago-KY trips faster than those damn Camrys anyway. And I can tell you this: as for wanting that power, in 12 years I have yet to get in a police chase despite all my prayers and wishes, lol. Think of all the gas I could have saved in the meantime. Don't get me wrong - I've got as many speeding tickets as the best (or worst) of you and love to mix it up now and then... sometimes it's nice to go flat-out on a deserted road, and lay tar in the Twisties. Given the choice I would probably buy the bigger engine... but 95% of the time, all that spec-sheet power is a waste. And "horsepower for safety's sake" is a myth - I put 80,000 additional highway miles on that 140HP ThunderTank and never once felt like I couldn't merge or pass... and this from 1997-2000 when newer cars were much "faster". Yeah, I'm wierd. I'll admit it. But most people can't think logically when it comes to cars.

Actually.... that was a campaign for the ORIGINAL Taurus, way back in 1986. "Taurus... For US!" So it's been done... You could spin that any way pro/con re: using it again today. It would be kinda funny to resurrect the nameplate with a spin on the birthing campaign... but it probably wouldn't fly.

How the hell did the current Toyota Camry get left off this list? And that's not "oh I am a Ford fan so I must bash the #1 enemy" tripe. In all pointed seriousness, that wannabe Bangle-bubble-butt, cellulite-taillight, blunt-fang-pungnose grille, pointless-stingray-fender monstrosity is one of the ugliest cars on the road. I withdrew all stock in the "design sells cars" coda, the moment that thing came out and continued to increase in sales.

Did you not see where I clearly said: "I hope this is just a roughed-in prototype and these issues can be addressed..." ??? The PROBLEM is that it's too hard to tell what's rough and what's final. I mean, yeah it would seem obvious to assume that some things would be addressed, but fer crissakes, how do you explain all the multicolored panels - are they trying to murder their testers? And with CAD and rapid prototyping, there would still be major gaps to work out? The designers didn't realize the wood trim has all the subtle style of a two-by-four? Something at this stage of testing is not a hand-carved vehicle rushed to the show floor. Much of it is parts-bin fodder in the first place. I'd expect that they should have lots of these details worked out before they leave mules out in the open like that. After all, woe be to he who just assumed that godawful slab of radio in the Fusion was just a "pre-prod prototype". But I will say it again... clearly: I RESERVE FINAL JUDGMENT until the final version is out... but so far I do not like what I see and am not going to hold my breath.