Ford can boost Europe profits by adding upscale Vignale SUVs

[Biker16]

http://europe.autonews.com/article/20160211/BLOG15/160209837/ford-can-boost-europe-profits-by-adding-upscale-vignale-suvs

 

 

Ford of Europe isn't saying which models will next get its upscale Vignale trimline but the brand's two largest SUVs are the top candidates.

Ford said in a Feb. 3 announcement that it will expand its Vignale variants to at least five by 2017 as part of its plans to improve profitably at its European operations.

Currently Ford sells the Mondeo midsize model with a Vignale trim and will soon add a Vignale version of the S-Max minivan.

A Ford of Europe spokesman wouldn't comment on future Vignales except to say that the Galaxy large minivan will not get the trimline.

Adding Vignale versions of the Edge large SUV, which will go on sale in Europe in the second quarter, and the recently face-lifted Kuga compact SUV, would make sense because these models earn higher margins than regular cars such as the Focus hatchback.

Geneva debuts

Ford will unveil two of its new Vig

 

[jpd80]

As described in another thread, Vignale is a much better plan than trying to launch Lincoln in Europe.

At the Moment Mondeo is the only Vignale variant but S-Max is a good bet as is Edge but maybe Kuga too..

[twintornados]

Vignale=Mercury

[jpd80]

Vignale=Mercury

Only that Vignale is a single trim level not a separate brand.

Edited February 13, 2016 by jpd80

[rmc523]

Only that Vignale is a single trim level not a separate brand.

I think his point was more that Vignale only represents a slight step up on Ford models, akin to what Mercury was. But Lincoln is still above and beyond that.

 

I think one day, when Lincoln has better established itself around the world, we could see it offered in Europe, but that's a ways away.

[jpd80]

I think his point was more that Vignale only represents a slight step up on Ford models, akin to what Mercury was. But Lincoln is still above and beyond that.

 

I think one day, when Lincoln has better established itself around the world, we could see it offered in Europe, but that's a ways away.

It's not the same, Mercury's entry point was fractionally above the Ford version's entry point.

Vignale is a top of the line trim above Titanium (like Platinum in the USA) so it's basically a

Lincoln interior inside a Ford exterior

 

I'm OK with people trying to remember Mercury as a premium brand, that's what it should have been

but the reality was that it was driven as an almost parallel channel as the Ford product line with similar prices.

Edited February 14, 2016 by jpd80

[RichardJensen]

that's what it should have been

 

That's what it was from 1939 to 1965ish. Mercury products were longer and wider than Fords.

 

What killed Mercury was the same thing that killed Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Plymouth, and should've killed Buick: The '58 T-Bird & '65 LTD.

[akirby]

Vignale's have a lot of Lincoln components such as the Mondeo's adaptive LED headlamps which are only available on the MKZ here.

Edited February 14, 2016 by akirby

[Fgts]

 

 

What killed Mercury was the same thing that killed Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Plymouth, and should've killed Buick: The '58 T-Bird & '65 LTD.

That's a stretch, where's the Tbird and LTD now?, if anything the Mustang killed the Tbird and Ford's management and Taurus killed LTD.

 

Plymouth was Chrysler's value/volume division the LTD was too expensive to complete with Plymouth, that what's Chrysler was for. Ford Custom 500 would had been the Plymouth competitor.

 

Pontiac was well into it's prime when LTD debut. A 421SD powered Pontiac had barbecue anything fullsize Ford then in performance. It took the Turino and Mustang to match GTO and Firebird at the time.

 

Olds?, Olds sales prime was during the malaise-era with millions of Cutlass being sold, how an Tbird or LTD compete with that?.

[RichardJensen]

That's a stretch

 

Allow me to explain...

 

First, since the car business is, above all else, a business, the reasons why the T-Bird and LTD killed mid-level brands (or in the case of Chrysler, an entry-level brand) are business reasons.

 

When Sloan created the 'brand ladder' at GM it was predicated on very simple vehicle ranges under each brand. There were not 'models' as such under the Sloan ladder, just makes. The 'models' were coupes, wagons, etc.

 

This persisted right up into the 50s.

 

To be sure, Chevrolet launched the Corvette before the '58 T-Bird, but that was a niche product. It was never going to be a significant contributor to the business of GM.

 

What was significant about the "square bird" was that it slotted above the conventional Ford coupe in price and accoutrements and was not a trim package on the Ford coupe body, but still carried a Ford badge. This had not been done before. It would have been closer to the conventional wisdom to package the Thunderbird as the Edsel coupe.

 

That the Thunderbird was a roaring success basically spelled the end of the single model days--and that started to undercut the brand ladder.

 

In model year 1965, when the LTD was launched, midlevel 'luxury' features were added for the first time to the entrylevel brand's highest volume sedans, coupes and wagons

 

Ford's business reasons for doing this were incredibly simple: Mercury was a much weaker brand than any of the midlevel brands at GM. Much weaker. The LTD was a very successful effort to cannibalize sales from Oldsmobile and Buick, with the related loss of Mercury volume being something Ford was willing to accept.

 

At this point the only thing that differentiated the midlevel brands was their longer wheelbases (which were basically unnoticeable in terms of passenger space). And that went away, AFAIK, in the mid 70s, at which point the midlevel brands became effectively entrylevel.

 

The effect at GM was profound. The company was no longer selling an aspirational pyramid from Chevrolet to Cadillac, they were selling four brands that effectively competed with each other.

 

At Chrysler, the brand that got edged out was, not surprisingly, Plymouth. Plymouth was by far the weakest entry-level brand among the Big Three's stable, and since Chrysler had effectively ended up with three entry-level brands (Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth), it was a simple decision to axe Plymouth.

 

Essentially, the T-Bird & LTD leveled the rather artificial gap between midlevel and entrylevel brands, and that made many brands redundant.

 

---

 

It should also be mentioned that the gaps in this brand ladder were far more beneficial to GM than they were to Ford or Chrysler. Thus, while Ford's own Mercury brand was a long-term casualty of a change in the market they initiated, the effect on GM was far more significant.

Edited February 14, 2016 by RichardJensen

[StangBang]

That's a stretch, where's the Tbird and LTD now?, if anything the Mustang killed the Tbird and Ford's management and Taurus killed LTD.

It's true the Mustang took over both Thunderbird and Falcon sales with it's sporty and extremely affordable design. This forced the T-bird further upmarket to compete in the newer large personal luxury segment. The Falcon never recovered and was left to die being absorbed temporarily into the Torino line for the second half of 1970 then dropped and considered replaced by the Maverick.

 

I don't see a problem with the Taurus replacing the LTD. Ford responded with the right car that customers wanted and yes it could have been named LTD but this was an all new car that was considerably different than anything from the past and it deserved a fresh name. By then the LTD was already watered down to being a slightly fancier Fairmont and it really was not that lush. Any grandiosity the LTD nameplate had was lost by the end of the 70's as Ford kept adding luxury appointments to smaller cars through the way of Torino Broughams and Granada Ghias. Ford even tried to make a mini-Tbird out of the Mustang II Ghia hardtop. The muscle car era collapsed due to insurance rates and EPA regs so car makers had to find something that did sell, which was affordable luxury by means of plush padded living rooms on wheels. The 1980's eventually redefined luxury.

 

Plymouth was Chrysler's value/volume division the LTD was too expensive to complete with Plymouth, that what's Chrysler was for. Ford Custom 500 would had been the Plymouth competitor.

Plymouth competed with the V.I.P.

 

Olds?, Olds sales prime was during the malaise-era with millions of Cutlass being sold, how an Tbird or LTD compete with that?.

The Thunderbird did compete and won the sales crown from the Cutlass Supreme with the very successful 1977-79 models. It was a trick of offering a restyle of an existing mid-sized 2-door car line (Torino/Elite/Montego/Cougar) and applying the high equity inspirational image of the Thunderbird nameplate. Knocking a couple of thousand off the price, they offered the Thunderbird de-contented with the option to build up making it affordable to virtually everyone. This pretty much repeated the original Mustang formula that made it popular. The Thunderbird was a sales success again later after the 1983 Aerobird models came out. What sold those cars was pretty much the groundbreaking aerodynamic design with an attention to better driving dynamics. Sales were good until the late 80's when the personal luxury coupe market started collapsing due to the increased popularity of new Japanese luxury makes, four door sedans in general and SUV's.

 

As far as the LTD goes, it was a full-sized car that did not compete with the mid-sized Cutlass. Mid-sized Torinos never sold that well. They lost a lot of sales to the new trimmer sized Granada that was actually down to the original size of the 60's Fairlane. Restyling Torinos into LTD II's really didn't help much as that was more of a lame attempt to keep LTD sales by faking a downsized LTD to compete with the smaller 1977 Caprice and Impala. By 1978, GM performed it's first round of downsizing on the mid-sized cars. The Fairmont found success by picking up mid-sized sales. The LTD II was dropped after 1979 leaving only the Fairmont and Granada. After the Granada nameplate was moved to the Fairmont body for 1981, it really did not do all that well and it seemed like in no time GM shifted all mid-sized cars in another round of downsizing to smaller FWD cars which Ford did not have until the Taurus came out. Restyling the Granada into an LTD helped sales a lot but it was nothing on a grand scale.

 

The Cutlass and it's make Oldsmobile no longer exists. The name of the car game now is covering market segments that sell. As far as the state of the Thunderbird now, there is no car to put the nameplate on.The Roadster was a two seater with slow sales with limited appeal. Mustang currently holds the market for a four seater coupe and convertible which is already the original concept of the 1958 Thunderbird, so marketing a Thunderbird as a car in that same configuration would be redundant and find limited sales, especially considering the macho performance image and enormous popularity the Mustang has over the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird could have repeated history and became a 4-door like the Taurus is now, but current Taurus sales shows the large sedan market dying. The entire reason the original Thunderbird 4-door went away was because LTD Brougham models were just as luxurious for less money and sold extremely well. There is really no business case for a Thunderbird of any sort at this time and nostalgia of a nameplate does not pay Ford's bills. If you want an LTD, go buy a Taurus Limited while they are still making them and remove a few letters out of the Limited nameplate.

Edited February 14, 2016 by StangBang

[StangBang]

Vignale is a great experiment to see if European buyers will aspire to a more luxurious Ford. That could pave the way for Ford to offer bespoke Lincoln models later from the global menu. They may respond better to Lincolns badged as Vignale. However with the limited market, putting fancy interiors in existing Ford models and offering customer service perks at the dealer may be all they ever get.

Edited February 14, 2016 by StangBang

[StangBang]

 

I'm OK with people trying to remember Mercury as a premium brand, that's what it should have been

but the reality was that it was driven as an almost parallel channel as the Ford product line with similar prices.

 

It was painfully obvious by the design of the intermediate car lines of the late 1960's that Mercury's were becoming alternately styled Ford clones. When the 1970's came around they gave very little thought of how to differentiate a Mercury from a Ford other than a different grille and taillamps. If your were lucky you might get a different hood and trunklid. The ultimate was the Tbird and Cougar as same car with two different rear rooflines. Yes Mercury really needed to go away.

[Fgts]

 

Allow me to explain...

 

First, since the car business is, above all else, a business, the reasons why the T-Bird and LTD killed mid-level brands (or in the case of Chrysler, an entry-level brand) are business reasons.

 

When Sloan created the 'brand ladder' at GM it was predicated on very simple vehicle ranges under each brand. There were not 'models' as such under the Sloan ladder, just makes. The 'models' were coupes, wagons, etc.

 

This persisted right up into the 50s.

 

To be sure, Chevrolet launched the Corvette before the '58 T-Bird, but that was a niche product. It was never going to be a significant contributor to the business of GM.

 

What was significant about the "square bird" was that it slotted above the conventional Ford coupe in price and accoutrements and was not a trim package on the Ford coupe body, but still carried a Ford badge. This had not been done before. It would have been closer to the conventional wisdom to package the Thunderbird as the Edsel coupe.

 

That the Thunderbird was a roaring success basically spelled the end of the single model days--and that started to undercut the brand ladder.

 

I'll agree but it wasn't just the Tbird in the 50s, also it was VW and somewhat AMC. The big 3 knew they needed compacts to proceed forward.

In model year 1965, when the LTD was launched, midlevel 'luxury' features were added for the first time to the entrylevel brand's highest volume sedans, coupes and wagons

 

Ford's business reasons for doing this were incredibly simple: Mercury was a much weaker brand than any of the midlevel brands at GM. Much weaker. The LTD was a very successful effort to cannibalize sales from Oldsmobile and Buick, with the related loss of Mercury volume being something Ford was willing to accept.

 

Well the LTD didn't do it all by itself (the Caprice was introduced that year also). It gose back to the 50s again when the writing was on the wall with 55' Ford C/V, Chevy Bel Air and Plymouth Belvedere getting v8, a/c, pw, dls etc., stuff only before you can get only in a Caddy, Lincoln or Imperial, maybe Buick. This kept going until 58' Ford, Plymouth Impala and eventually 65' Caprice, LTD and Fury.

At this point the only thing that differentiated the midlevel brands was their longer wheelbases (which were basically unnoticeable in terms of passenger space). And that went away, AFAIK, in the mid 70s, at which point the midlevel brands became effectively entrylevel.

 

The effect at GM was profound. The company was no longer selling an aspirational pyramid from Chevrolet to Cadillac, they were selling four brands that effectively competed with each other.

 

 

This gose back the the fabulous 50s again, GM wanted to kill Pontiac by 57' if it wasn't for "Bunkie" Kundsen performance angle and the Pontiac engine that carries the brand till 81'. Olds was always the "experiment" division up until the end , Buick always kept the near-luxury theme going dispite cheaper and import competitors.

At Chrysler, the brand that got edged out was, not surprisingly, Plymouth. Plymouth was by far the weakest entry-level brand among the Big Three's stable, and since Chrysler had effectively ended up with three entry-level brands (Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth), it was a simple decision to axe Plymouth.

 

Chrysler did have internal fighting between Dodge and Plymouth that started (again) in the 50s for which brand was fleet/value and which was sports/near-luxury under Chrysler/Imperial. Plymouth by the pre-gas crunch 70s was by far the sales leader, then Dodge got revenge in the 80s and pre-Benz 90s. Plymouth finally had a plan with PT Cruiser and Prowler when Benz killed them.

 

Essentially, the T-Bird & LTD leveled the rather artificial gap between midlevel and entrylevel brands, and that made many brands redundant.

 

---

 

It should also be mentioned that the gaps in this brand ladder were far more beneficial to GM than they were to Ford or Chrysler. Thus, while Ford's own Mercury brand was a long-term casualty of a change in the market they initiated, the effect on GM was far more significant.

While certain models did make some vehicles redundant don't mean the other vehicles from other makes will stop selling. I'll give the 58' Tbird more credit for that then the LTD. Edited February 14, 2016 by Fgts

[Fgts]

It's true the Mustang took over both Thunderbird and Falcon sales with it's sporty and extremely affordable design. This forced the T-bird further upmarket to compete in the newer large personal luxury segment. The Falcon never recovered and was left to die being absorbed temporarily into the Torino line for the second half of 1970 then dropped and considered replaced by the Maverick.

 

I don't see a problem with the Taurus replacing the LTD. Ford responded with the right car that customers wanted and yes it could have been named LTD but this was an all new car that was considerably different than anything from the past and it deserved a fresh name. By then the LTD was already watered down to being a slightly fancier Fairmont and it really was not that lush. Any grandiosity the LTD nameplate had was lost by the end of the 70's as Ford kept adding luxury appointments to smaller cars through the way of Torino Broughams and Granada Ghias. Ford even tried to make a mini-Tbird out of the Mustang II Ghia hardtop. The muscle car era collapsed due to insurance rates and EPA regs so car makers had to find something that did sell, which was affordable luxury by means of plush padded living rooms on wheels. The 1980's eventually redefined luxury.

 

 

Plymouth competed with the V.I.P.

 

 

The Thunderbird did compete and won the sales crown from the Cutlass Supreme with the very successful 1977-79 models. It was a trick of offering a restyle of an existing mid-sized 2-door car line (Torino/Elite/Montego/Cougar) and applying the high equity inspirational image of the Thunderbird nameplate. Knocking a couple of thousand off the price, they offered the Thunderbird de-contented with the option to build up making it affordable to virtually everyone. This pretty much repeated the original Mustang formula that made it popular. The Thunderbird was a sales success again later after the 1983 Aerobird models came out. What sold those cars was pretty much the groundbreaking aerodynamic design with an attention to better driving dynamics. Sales were good until the late 80's when the personal luxury coupe market started collapsing due to the increased popularity of new Japanese luxury makes, four door sedans in general and SUV's.

 

As far as the LTD goes, it was a full-sized car that did not compete with the mid-sized Cutlass. Mid-sized Torinos never sold that well. They lost a lot of sales to the new trimmer sized Granada that was actually down to the original size of the 60's Fairlane. Restyling Torinos into LTD II's really didn't help much as that was more of a lame attempt to keep LTD sales by faking a downsized LTD to compete with the smaller 1977 Caprice and Impala. By 1978, GM performed it's first round of downsizing on the mid-sized cars. The Fairmont found success by picking up mid-sized sales. The LTD II was dropped after 1979 leaving only the Fairmont and Granada. After the Granada nameplate was moved to the Fairmont body for 1981, it really did not do all that well and it seemed like in no time GM shifted all mid-sized cars in another round of downsizing to smaller FWD cars which Ford did not have until the Taurus came out. Restyling the Granada into an LTD helped sales a lot but it was nothing on a grand scale.

 

The Cutlass and it's make Oldsmobile no longer exists. The name of the car game now is covering market segments that sell. As far as the state of the Thunderbird now, there is no car to put the nameplate on.The Roadster was a two seater with slow sales with limited appeal. Mustang currently holds the market for a four seater coupe and convertible which is already the original concept of the 1958 Thunderbird, so marketing a Thunderbird as a car in that same configuration would be redundant and find limited sales, especially considering the macho performance image and enormous popularity the Mustang has over the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird could have repeated history and became a 4-door like the Taurus is now, but current Taurus sales shows the large sedan market dying. The entire reason the original Thunderbird 4-door went away was because LTD Brougham models were just as luxurious for less money and sold extremely well. There is really no business case for a Thunderbird of any sort at this time and nostalgia of a nameplate does not pay Ford's bills. If you want an LTD, go buy a Taurus Limited while they are still making them and remove a few letters out of the Limited nameplate.

Right in the assessment, but I wouldn't use the current Taurus as a gauge in fullsize car sales as it a big car with midsize room also it's built where the crazy popular and more profitable Explorer is built and it's easy to see which more Ford would build. Charger, Impala , Lacrosse, etc are better gauges.

[StangBang]

The Taurus shortcoming of a lack of interior room does not disqualify it as a competitor in the class of full size offerings as that is what a customer reasonably expects to find when they compare a Fusion and a Taurus. The Taurus is expected to offer the same room as an Impala, LaCrosse, 300 or Charger with it's large exterior size but it does not.

[RichardJensen]

I'll agree but it wasn't just the Tbird in the 50s, also it was VW and somewhat AMC. The big 3 knew they needed compacts to proceed forward.

Well the LTD didn't do it all by itself (the Caprice was introduced that year also). It gose back to the 50s again when the writing was on the wall with 55' Ford C/V, Chevy Bel Air and Plymouth Belvedere getting v8, a/c, pw, dls etc., stuff only before you can get only in a Caddy, Lincoln or Imperial, maybe Buick. This kept going until 58' Ford, Plymouth Impala and eventually 65' Caprice, LTD and Fury.

 

 

This gose back the the fabulous 50s again, GM wanted to kill Pontiac by 57' if it wasn't for "Bunkie" Kundsen performance angle and the Pontiac engine that carries the brand till 81'. Olds was always the "experiment" division up until the end , Buick always kept the near-luxury theme going dispite cheaper and import competitors.

Chrysler did have internal fighting between Dodge and Plymouth that started (again) in the 50s for which brand was fleet/value and which was sports/near-luxury under Chrysler/Imperial. Plymouth by the pre-gas crunch 70s was by far the sales leader, then Dodge got revenge in the 80s and pre-Benz 90s. Plymouth finally had a plan with PT Cruiser and Prowler when Benz killed them.

 

While certain models did make some vehicles redundant don't mean the other vehicles from other makes will stop selling. I'll give the 58' Tbird more credit for that then the LTD.

 

- Compacts did not expand entry level brands up market. The Thunderbird did.

 

- The Caprice, Monaco & VIP were all introduced after the LTD and directly in response to it.

 

- Dispute the existence of the Alfred Sloan brand ladder at your peril. There is extensive documentation that this was how GM intended to divide the market, and that it was only with the collapsing of the artificial entry level/mid-level division that GM started to try to vary the appeal of their midlevel brands.

 

- I can't find any evidence that GM wanted to get rid of Pontiac in the mid 50s. I have never heard such a thing. Pontiac was either the second or third best selling GM brand throughout the early 50s, when such a decision would have been contemplated.

 

- If you do not believe that Plymouth was the weakest brand between it, Ford and Chevrolet, then I really don't know what to tell you.

 

- The impact the LTD had on midlevel brands cannot be understated. If you could essentially buy an Oldsmobile for a few hundred dollar up-charge on a Ford Galaxie, why would you buy an Oldsmobile?

Edited February 14, 2016 by RichardJensen

[RichardJensen]

getting v8, a/c, pw, dls etc., stuff only before you can get only in a Caddy, Lincoln or Imperial, maybe Buick

 

You could get a V8 in a Ford starting in 1932.

 

From what I can see, air conditioning was not held off as a luxury exclusive for much of its modern existence. Starting from the early 50s, it seems to have been available in all makes shortly after being introduced by the manufacturer. At most a year or two of midlevel or luxury brand exclusivity existed.

[Fgts]

 

You could get a V8 in a Ford starting in 1932.

 

From what I can see, air conditioning was not held off as a luxury exclusive for much of its modern existence. Starting from the early 50s, it seems to have been available in all makes shortly after being introduced by the manufacturer. At most a year or two of midlevel or luxury brand exclusivity existed.

The ohv Y-block that replaced flathead was introduced in 55' just in time for the SBC and Chrysler Commando v8.

A/C was also made it's debut that year for base level brands, i believe Chevy got p/dl and p/w options starting in 53', in other words the trend towards base brand luxury had started.

 

I had a more detailed response for the post before this but some post error kept coming up.

 

One part i'll say is all-new 65' AMC Ambassador was on the scene for better differentiation from it's smaller offerings and debut before LTD so did 65' Monaco and Fury after Chrysler embarrassed themselves in 61' for small fullsize mainstream cars and wanted to make a statement. Only the Caprice was the direct LTD competitor.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Fgts

[RichardJensen]

A/C was also made it's debut that year for base level brands, i believe Chevy got p/dl and p/w options starting in 53', in other words the trend towards base brand luxury had started.

 

That's a fair point, but it misses the impact of the Thunderbird.

 

A 1958 Thunderbird coupe had a base MSRP of $3,631. That was smack dab in the middle of the Oldsmobile Super 88 and 98 coupes ($3,262 & $4,020).

 

It was also $1,200 more than the base MSRP of a Fairlane 500 coupe.

 

The Thunderbird conclusively demonstrated that an entry-level branded vehicle could sell in the rather artificially created 'mid level' segment.

 

Regarding the LTD, again, the LTD was more significant than trims like the Crown Vic & Bel Air because neither of those trims fully bridged the gap between their luxury fittings and those of their mid-level 'siblings'. The LTD did.

 

By the time the LTD was launched, the size difference between entry and mid-level full sizers was minimal, and the LTD basically finished off the gradual leveling off in available equipment that had been going on for some time.

 

Consider that a '65 LTD coupe carried a $3,167 MSRP. An Oldsmobile 98 Sport coupe had a base MSRP of $4,111.

 

Essentially, the Thunderbird and LTD packages exposed the artificiality of the mid-level segment in two different directions: First by establishing that customers would pay mid-level prices for entry-level brands, and second by selling mid-level accoutrement at an entry-level price, thus greatly reducing the pricing power that GM had--up to that point--been able to maintain over its mid-level product.

[RichardJensen]

The whole mid 20th century evolution of the auto industry is fascinating.

 

Sloan had this passel of brands that he was able to structure into a highly artificial construct of pricing and desirability, and good grief did that brand hierarchy work for GM......

 

I mean, GM became GM over about a thirty year period from the 20s to the 50s, in which they mastered that step ladder.

 

And then Ford--inadvertently, by all available evidence--exposed the artificiality of it.*

 

The subsequent history of GM's decline, which has now lasted almost as long as their best years, is in part a refusal to fully acknowledge the death of that hierarchy. Even now, GM withholds options & materials from Chevrolet in order to preserve the fiction of a distinction between that brand and Buick.

 

*It seems obvious they had no idea what they were doing. The Thunderbird launched at the same time as the Edsel--they were busy trying to expand their own brand ladder while launching a product that demonstrated how artificial that brand ladder was.

Edited February 15, 2016 by RichardJensen

[akirby]

One difference between GM and Ford was the dealership structure. There were no stand alone Mercury dealers (or very very very few) whereas there were tons of pontiac/buick/olds/saturn/gmc dealers either stand alone or in various combinations.

 

Killing Mercury was easy and didn't require closing more than a few dealerships.

[mackinaw]

The whole mid 20th century evolution of the auto industry is fascinating.

 

Sloan had this passel of brands that he was able to structure into a highly artificial construct of pricing and desirability, and good grief did that brand hierarchy work for GM......

 

I mean, GM became GM over about a thirty year period from the 20s to the 50s, in which they mastered that step ladder.

 

And then Ford--inadvertently, by all available evidence--exposed the artificiality of it.*

 

The subsequent history of GM's decline, which has now lasted almost as long as their best years, is in part a refusal to fully acknowledge the death of that hierarchy. Even now, GM withholds options & materials from Chevrolet in order to preserve the fiction of a distinction between that brand and Buick.

 

*It seems obvious they had no idea what they were doing. The Thunderbird launched at the same time as the Edsel--they were busy trying to expand their own brand ladder while launching a product that demonstrated how artificial that brand ladder was.

 

Interesting theory. I’m not going to argue against what you're saying but will mention that Ford was also pursuing a multi-division, GM-type strategy in the late 1950’s (Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln and Continental). Poor sales of the Edsel and the rise of Robert McNamara pretty much killed that idea.

And I agree that Ford had no idea what they created with the ’58 Thunderbird. McNamara correctly figured a 4-passenger T-Bird would sell much better than the 2-passenger model so he pushed that idea. Of course he was right, sales skyrocketed, and inadvertently he created a brand new class of car. The Thunderbird had such a great name in the 1950’s in made perfect sense to keep it as a Ford, even though it probably would have made more sense to market it as a Mercury or Edsel.

As somebody who was a kid back then and remembers his dad bringing home a 1957 Thunderbird for the weekend (let me tell you, I was the coolest kid on the block for those two days), I can tell you how much I hated the 1958 T-Bird. Still hate that car to this day.

 

[RichardJensen]

 

I can tell you how much I hated the 1958 T-Bird. Still hate that car to this day.

 

 

You and my dad both.

[RichardJensen]

 

Ford was also pursuing a multi-division, GM-type strategy in the late 1950’s (Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln and Continental)

 

 

What Ford did, accidentally, with the T-bird and with a bit more intent (perhaps) with the LTD reminds me of a tale from Kierkegaard:

 

"One must go further, one must go further." This impulse to go further is an ancient thing in the world...Heraclitus the obscure once said, "One cannot step into the same river twice." Heraclitus had a student who did not stop there; no, the student went further and added, "One cannot even step into the same river once!" Poor Heraclitus, to have had such a student as that! For by his amendment, the thesis of Heraclitus was so improved that it became the Eleatic thesis which denies movement, and yet the student desired only to be a disciple of Heraclitus

 

 

Ford was just trying to best GM at their own game--and in the process they upset the whole GM model.