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266 mph from an old friend


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Sort of ironic that a thread I posted about Ford's fastest, most expensive production vehicle ever has turned into a fight about a dime-a-dozen Focus. Such is the story of BON.

 

Amen on the hijack.

 

Something not discussed in the thread. A (product development) learning curve that took a vehicle from concept to production in 16 months vs. 30. Also forgot to mention that the program had a very small number of actual prototypes built, having developed (and validated) most of that car in virtual program(s). Yep, definately created some value there.

 

An opinion: You need to try small/high viz projects once in a while to stretch your corporate 'legs' to appreciate what Ford is truly capable of when it decides to break industry & internal paradigms. And BTW, if you actually knew any of the team members, you'd be amazed at the bandwidth of those folks. The real 'loss' if there was one was not building upon the experience ~ greater transfer of some of the more forward technologies and of course, further responsibility and development of those GT team members.

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I apologise for being party to hijacking the thread by responding to Pioneer's jibes.

 

No biggie. I wasn't necessarily saying it was bad that it went this direction. Mostly that it was ironic ;) Certainly was not the direction I expected.

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Amen on the hijack.

 

Something not discussed in the thread. A (product development) learning curve that took a vehicle from concept to production in 16 months vs. 30. Also forgot to mention that the program had a very small number of actual prototypes built, having developed (and validated) most of that car in virtual program(s). Yep, definately created some value there.

 

An opinion: You need to try small/high viz projects once in a while to stretch your corporate 'legs' to appreciate what Ford is truly capable of when it decides to break industry & internal paradigms. And BTW, if you actually knew any of the team members, you'd be amazed at the bandwidth of those folks. The real 'loss' if there was one was not building upon the experience ~ greater transfer of some of the more forward technologies and of course, further responsibility and development of those GT team members.

Precisely. The car itself was almost certainly a money loser, but the lessons learned and advertising created by it were worth something. At the very least, this car was far less of a money pit than PAG ever was. I'd like to see Ford make a new one, but I'm sure it's not in the cards any time soon. A new RWD platform would probably be a better use of cash at this point in time.

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Precisely. The car itself was almost certainly a money loser, but the lessons learned and advertising created by it were worth something. At the very least, this car was far less of a money pit than PAG ever was. I'd like to see Ford make a new one, but I'm sure it's not in the cards any time soon. A new RWD platform would probably be a better use of cash at this point in time.

I don't think there would be any harm in Ford engineering taking a look at the car and seeing where costs could be saved without sacrificing quality. You may find current technology might deliver a modified GT at a more modest price...

 

Some suggest PAG drained around $10 billion so even at $1 billion the GT would be a

much small hurt especially if the 4300 sales achieved near their $150,000 asking price.

Edited by jpd80
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You just can't admit that you pulled a number out of your ass, can you?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_23/b4037036.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_best+of+bw

 

When Mulally was reviewing the company's 2008 product line last September, for example, he was told that Ford loses close to $3,000 every time a customer buys a Focus compact, according to one executive. "Why haven't you figured out a way to make a profit?"
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