Ford: Next Gen Focus to begin production in NA in 2010

[Ford Jellymoulds]

Americans are finding all small cars visually stimulating with $4 gasoline at the pump.

 

Americans are finding big SUV's and Pick-up not so visually stunning these days maybe they all need to look like a Focus?

[theoldwizard]

1) Great design is, by its very definition, a rarity. One cannot routinely produce 'great' design as the very act of making greatness commonplace reduces it from its stature as 'great'. One can no more have consistent 'greatness' than one can have everything above average ...

Many years ago, when Ford was "knocking 'em dead" with cars like the Fox based Thunderbird, the Mark VII and the original Taurus, the company was actually within a few percentage points of being #1 in vehicle sales (I don't recall if it was US or the world). My father told me how proud I should be for working for such a successful company.

 

My response was something to the effect, "I'm not certain that those designs (Thunderbird, Mark VII and Taurus) are do to talent, research and hard work or just dumb luck !" I guess it was the latter.

 

Jack Telnack was the head of design in those days and was under enormous pressure to come up with more "hits". His "swan song" was the ovoid Taurus, which everyone knows was a bomb !

 

Styling sheetmetal and glass into a form that large quantities of people with adequate funds want to own and that has reasonable performance and get reasonable fuel economy (for the times) is an art, not a science. Or my other favorite saying, "Almost everyone likes ice cream. Some people like vanilla, some people like chocolate. Some people even like tutti-frutti !"

Edited June 24, 2008 by theoldwizard

[RichardJensen]

Unless you post a hypothesis that can itself be tested and proven or contradicted with evidence, you are saying nothing.

Such a statement, in effect, says that logic and reasoning are useful only in the hard sciences.

 

In effect, it says that it is perfectly acceptable to allege, for instance, that the CIA killed JFK because it cannot be tested.

 

Anyone who advances a notion outside the status quo should rightfully be expected to defend that notion with logically constructed arguments.

 

It should never be the obligation of other parties to disprove an assertion.

 

For instance, say I assert that the CIA ordered Kennedy killed, then you say, "what proof do you have?" and I say, "YOU prove that it DIDN'T happen."

 

Well, see I've just tasked you with proving a negative, which is darn near impossible, so I can crow about how I'm right simply because I've demanded that you prove me wrong.

 

===

 

Similarly, the status quo is FNA's current lineup.

 

When someone comes along and says "FoE products would sell better in NA than FNA product" it is not the responsibility of everyone else to prove that they wouldn't.

 

Instead, it's the responsibility of the person advancing the notion to support his claim with cogent and reasonable arguments.

 

To expect an individual to furnish logical bases for ideas put forth even if they cannot be subjected to rigorous scientific proof is certainly not incorrect.

[pcsario]

One cannot routinely produce 'great' design as the very act of making greatness commonplace reduces it from its stature as 'great'. One can no more have consistent 'greatness' than one can have everything above average.

 

But you can have consistency in the quality of the efforts.

 

There's no consistency with FNA, it's either barely decent or a total disaster. (Flex Vs Fusion interior, Mustang Vs FuckUs exterior, etc.)

 

Compare that to churning out winner after winner like FOE has done in & out. Mondeo, Focus, S-Max, Fiesta, etc. No matter if you like or don't like their styling, their execution is always solid (stampings, craftmanship, NVH, R&H, work from production designers, etc.)

 

BTW don't get me started on design language consistency.

 

 

2) You have offered no proof that Americans are not 'visually stimulated' by FNA product.

 

Yes I have.

 

The general concensus from reviewers (american reviewers, including average Joes judging by their buying habits), is that they consider FNA's idea of "what americans like" in anything but trucks, visually speaking, both wrong and insulting. Once again, FNA's definition of "what americans like"

 

 

Feel free to list the few exceptions, they will be just that, "exceptions". No consistency there as well, so it's clear the car design team in FNA isn't as good as FOE's. It's as if they just pencil something together in a napkin and send it to the production guys, with no refinement whatsover.

 

 

Am I to understand that you are asserting that the success of the Edge and Focus (leaving aside for the moment the Fusion, as you are at least willing to concede the Edge & Focus as successes) is entirely independent of their styling?

 

FuckUs? Yes, it doesn't have anything to do with its styling, it's just a tempting package for the price.

 

Edge's styling is decent and people wanted an alternative for the Murano for years, doesn't mean we should think everything about it is perfect "because it's selling well". I'm against your refusal to recognize the fact FNA designers lack the ambition and obsession with design FOE designers have shown. If they have any talent, they're not using it as they should, or lack consistency.

 

When Nissan launched the '02 Altima, everyone agreed the cabin needed to be redone. Had you been in charge of Nissan, would you've told everyone to shut up "because it's selling well and therefore that proves there's nothing to fix or improve, we got the interior right yadda yadda"?

 

 

Are you stating, in effect, that FNA designers received negative feedback on Focus & Edge styling from consumer clinics and ignored it? Because if consumers were not responding to Edge/Focus design during clinics, shouldn't this have been noted?

 

Consumer clinics are retarded. Do I really need to remind you how "listening to customers feedback on styling" resulted in the Aztek, the old Malibu, your 96 Sable, etc.? Most people don't like new things. And then, even if we accept the idea Ford listened to them, said consumers flip flopped with the FuckUs, because the first clinics obviously did like the original fog lights 3-4 years ago.

 

In the end you're the only one who can decide if you should raise the bar or not, clinics will just work with what you give them, but you're the one who has to come up with a design that's suited for the future, tempting enough to make your product a strong candidate when its launched, not barely competitive with what's out there right now, which is what FNA did in the last couple of years.

 

I would, on the contrary, argue that the success of the Edge & Focus is due in no small part to their distinctive appearance. And that, therefore, Ford NA designers have done their work, inasmuch as they have delivered products for which styling is a positive factor for their target audience.

 

Those would be just two "hits" out of how many questionable efforts?

 

You might not like FOE, but their work is consistenly acceptable and competitive (truly competitive).

Edited June 24, 2008 by pcsario

[MKII]

What I find hard to ignore are the comments from readers of auto news,reviews etc, never mind the car rag writers.

With this announcement it appears to me that most comments are very positive for once about Ford N.A.

 

Maybe in reality all these readers that comment on such articles should be discarded as useless points of view.

But I for one find it hard to discard all these peoples opinions about Ford cars where in the past the majority of

the comments are pretty damn negative.

 

Maybe real Ford car consumers do not read and comment on these articles, and RJ is absolutely bang on in the sense that Ford N.A. should just keep on towing the line as it is and keep what is left of the Ford car loyalist customer base.

Ford N.A. has decent product of good quality as measured by both Consumer Reports and JD Power (especially models launched over the past 4 years)

 

Decent product should help keep the Ford loyalists.

 

But Mulally seems to diagree and is going into unchartered waters and taking a risk to sell a different type of Ford car to the North American consumer. And in a much different way then what was done in the past with the Contour and in a sense the Focus.

Seems he is going to offer the full monty , I just hope for the consumers sake the planners put enough cup holders and whatever else the N.A. expects and the former saboteurs have been locked up somewhere.

Edited June 25, 2008 by MKII

[Ford Jellymoulds]

Maybe real Ford car consumers do not read and comment on these articles, and RJ is absolutely bang on in the sense that Ford N.A. should just keep on towing the line as it is and keep what is left of the Ford car loyalist customer base.

Ford N.A. has decent product of good quality as measured by both Consumer Reports and JD Power (especially models launched over the past 4 years)

 

Decent product should help keep the Ford loyalists.

 

But Mulally seems to diagree and is going into unchartered waters and taking a risk to sell a different type of Ford car to the North American consumer. And in a much different way then what was done in the past with the Contour and in a sense the Focus.

Seems he is going to offer the full monty , and hope for the consumers sake the planners put enough cup holders and whatever else the N.A. expects.

 

Good post, Toyota tried to sell the Camry in Europe and sold next to none in the five years that it was sold here, Why?

It was not because it was not a good car or any other excuse, simply put average Joe was paying 3 times the price for gasoline that Americans pay for it, which is about close to $12 for a UK gallon at the moment.

 

The only reason average Joe chose not buy a Camry because they cost to much to fill up money the extra cost to fill it up was considered "dead money" to high a price. If we had had $2 a gallon gasoline at the time it might of sold like hot cakes to average Joes in Europe.

 

Your gasoline prices are starting hit what our prices used to be about 15 years ago suprise surprise average Joe is struggling to fill-up his SUV all that's happening is you want to drive our sized car we had back then, as average Joe in Europe move into even smaller cars Mini's, Fiat 500's, the Econetic Focus and Fiesta's.

 

Yes Ferrari, Porsche & Mercedes can get away with selling one generic global car for the whole worlds stinking rich to buy, but average Joes can't we are different animals, most would love to own a big engine Mustang or F-Series if we only had to pay $4 a gallon, but l don't think many Americans want them either if you had to pay $12 a gallon for gasoline or even the $18 a gallon diesel highs that some garages are charging at the moment in the UK.

 

We will never the same taste in cars because we have the such different gasoline prices.

 

Europe to US possible

US to Europe impossible

[rmc523]

Because FNA's efforts are subpar compared not only to FOE, but the competition as well. Things are improving (gotta admit engineering has done its work lately), but other than the Flex, the design department is still leaving much to be desired (new Mustang and Fusion interiors... I expected better after the Flex).

 

Fusion, I suppose you can comment on, since we've seen an uncovered one, but Mustang? You haven't seen an uncovered dash yet, only bits and pieces.

[RichardJensen]

Compare that to churning out winner after winner like FOE has done in & out. Mondeo, Focus, S-Max, Fiesta, etc. No matter if you like or don't like their styling, their execution is always solid (stampings, craftmanship, NVH, R&H, work from production designers, etc.)

And yet, FoE market share is basically flat, and has been for the past several years. FNA market share has been flat for about the last 2 years.

The general concensus from reviewers (american reviewers, including average Joes judging by their buying habits), is that they consider FNA's idea of "what americans like" in anything but trucks, visually speaking, both wrong and insulting.

Reviewers and the 'average Joes' that pollute Autoblog and the like savaged the Focus, and yet, guess what? It's selling--gaining market share with an increased transaction price. For the first time in almost a decade, Ford can actually talk about eking out a small profit on its compact cars.

Consumer clinics are retarded. Do I really need to remind you how "listening to customers feedback on styling" resulted in the Aztek, the old Malibu, your 96 Sable, etc.?

Consumer clinics also resulted in the '86 Taurus

You might not like FOE, but their work is consistenly acceptable and competitive (truly competitive).

I like FoE just fine. However, I wonder if FoE's Mondeo and Focus have taken market share the way FNA's Fusion & Edge have, whether FoE's S-Max took the lion's share of its segment the way the Edge did.

 

Furthermore, the idea that FoE's fitness to their task qualifies them to execute FNA's tasks better than FNA is by no means as intuitive a leap as you'd like to suggest.