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Wards 10 Best Interiors for '22


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On 5/11/2022 at 8:05 PM, rperez817 said:

 

Jim Hackett's "design thinking" as applied to vehicle interiors is really paying off for Ford nowadays, both with Maverick and Mustang Mach-E.

 

Yeah, I'm sure the CEO was real hands on with interior design  

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31 minutes ago, ESP08 said:

 

Yeah, I'm sure the CEO was real hands on with interior design  


He absolutely changed how Ford goes about interior design.
 

Quote

The goal, Hackett argued, was to look beyond quarterly returns and tackle Ford's long-term challenges. To thrive in an age of artificial intelligence, hyper-connectivity, and driverless electric vehicles, he said, Ford must compete with the likes of Google, Amazon, and Tesla, not just Toyota and General Motors. To those ends, Hackett enlisted the aid design gurus at IDEO, the San Francisco-based consultancy that helped to popularize the idea of "design thinking," and built an entirely new design studio, D-Ford, inside the carmaker.

 

Edited by akirby
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1 hour ago, ESP08 said:

Yeah, I'm sure the CEO was real hands on with interior design  

 

Very much hands on. As mentioned in the quote akirby provided above, Hackett built a new design studio and worked directly with designers, engineers, and marketers involved with vehicle interiors.

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1 hour ago, ESP08 said:

Is a press release the extent of your evidence of Hackett's amazing influence on Ford's interior design?  

 

Looks like only the Ford Mach E GT and Lincoln high trim models so far. I was looking at a Maverick Lariat interior today, and was not overly impressed.

 

However, Ford does seem to be doing better making high trim Explorers and even the Escape look more attractive with eye popping contrasting stichings and Maverick interior does attract the eye better with more attractive patterns. 

 

Now these improvements have come only in the past year or so with Timberline and Stealth option packages. Looks like Ford is listening to critics when Explorer and Escape first came out, not Hackett.

 

Now maybe Hackett gets some credit for BS and Maverick interior, but it didn't carry over to Explore and Escape.

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40 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

 

Looks like only the Ford Mach E GT and Lincoln high trim models so far. I was looking at a Maverick Lariat interior today, and was not overly impressed.

 

However, Ford does seem to be doing better making high trim Explorers and even the Escape look more attractive with eye popping contrasting stichings and Maverick interior does attract the eye better with more attractive patterns. 

 

Now these improvements have come only in the past year or so with Timberline and Stealth option packages. Looks like Ford is listening to critics when Explorer and Escape first came out, not Hackett.

 

Now maybe Hackett gets some credit for BS and Maverick interior, but it didn't carry over to Explore and Escape.

 

I've gotta say, the interior of my Mach-E GT PE is fantastic, one of the best I've ever seen out of Ford. Since it's in the shop now, I have a 2022 Edge loaner, and even though it's a loaded Titanium, the interior is very dated and cheap.

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1 hour ago, ESP08 said:

Is a press release the extent of your evidence of Hackett's amazing influence on Ford's interior design?  


Id say the complete makeover of the Mach-E and the award winning Maverick speak for themselves.

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47 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

 

Looks like only the Ford Mach E GT and Lincoln high trim models so far. I was looking at a Maverick Lariat interior today, and was not overly impressed.

 

However, Ford does seem to be doing better making high trim Explorers and even the Escape look more attractive with eye popping contrasting stichings and Maverick interior does attract the eye better with more attractive patterns. 

 

Now these improvements have come only in the past year or so with Timberline and Stealth option packages. Looks like Ford is listening to critics when Explorer and Escape first came out, not Hackett.

 

Now maybe Hackett gets some credit for BS and Maverick interior, but it didn't carry over to Explore and Escape.


It’s not about appearance it’s about functionality.  Appearance is totally subjective.  The new Lincoln interiors are head and shoulders above the old ones in terms of usability and ergonomics.

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19 minutes ago, akirby said:


It’s not about appearance it’s about functionality.  Appearance is totally subjective.  The new Lincoln interiors are head and shoulders above the old ones in terms of usability and ergonomics.

 

Ford does a good job with intuitive functionality. My Escape controls are much more intuitive than my Crosstrek was. Ditto with ergonomics. Ford really shines with good ergonomics and intuitive infotainment systems. 

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25 minutes ago, akirby said:

It’s not about appearance it’s about functionality. 

 

17 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

Ford does a good job with intuitive functionality. My Escape controls are much more intuitive than my Crosstrek was. Ditto with ergonomics. Ford really shines with good ergonomics and intuitive infotainment systems. 

 

A well-designed interior is both functional and attractive. FordBuyer, you are correct that Ford does a good job with intuitive functionality. What Jim Hackett's design thinking really moved forward at Ford was making vehicle interiors attractive and stylish.

 

For example, 2020 Escape won a Wards 10 "Best UX" award thanks to its intuitive Sync 3 infotainment system and lots of standard ADAS features. But Escape interior did not win a 10 "Best Interior" award due to its cheap, bland look.

 

2021 Mustang Mach-E and 2022 Maverick won Wards 10 "Best UX" and "Best Interior" awards. Interiors for both of those Ford products combine good functionality with good looks.

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58 minutes ago, MadManMoon said:

I've gotta say, the interior of my Mach-E GT PE is fantastic, one of the best I've ever seen out of Ford. 

 

Completely agree MadManMoon. Interior for the Mustang Mach-E First Edition my wife drives is among the best of any car my family and I have owned over the years. Better than my Tesla Model S, better than the Jaguar XF I had before that. 

Edited by rperez817
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27 minutes ago, ESP08 said:

Design Thinking is management gobbledygook.  

 

How so? Design thinking has been successfully applied in business, education, health care, and other fields for over 50 years. Improved interiors in Ford cars and trucks are certainly good examples of how design thinking can provide benefits, but there are many, many more examples outside Ford and outside the automotive industry as well.

Edited by rperez817
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2 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

Now maybe Hackett gets some credit for BS and Maverick interior, but it didn't carry over to Explore and Escape.

Well no of course not, Explorer and Escape were well into prototypes and way too far along to make wholesale changes when Hackett came along. 

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1 hour ago, akirby said:


Obviously you haven’t read anything Hackett said about it or the things he did.


Exactly. I give Hackett a lot of grief for some of the the personnel decisions he made and a lot of the cost cutting measures but the way he changed the way Ford does design and engineering was a very good thing. 

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2 hours ago, ESP08 said:

 

I've read a lot about Design Thinking actually...  I'm glad Hackett is gone.  


You may hate him but the new designs are far better than the old ones and it sounds like he deserves at least part of the credit.

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On 5/17/2022 at 9:21 AM, akirby said:


You may hate him but the new designs are far better than the old ones and it sounds like he deserves at least part of the credit.

 

So I was curious about this and reached out to a couple of my friends still at the company, one who actually works in the design studio.  The short answer is Hackett was not very involved in anything with interior design. He was not a car guy and could not really speak the language if you know what I mean.  They rarely even saw him in the studio or anywhere in the Product Development buildings for that matter.  

 

That does not really surprise me because historically the CEO's have never gotten too big into design details.  That's what the Design and Engineering managers are for and there are plenty of them as it is.  If the CEO had to be hands on with design that just meant the Design and Engineering managers were not good at their jobs.  

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2 hours ago, iamweasel said:

 

So I was curious about this and reached out to a couple of my friends still at the company, one who actually works in the design studio.  The short answer is Hackett was not very involved in anything with interior design. He was not a car guy and could not really speak the language if you know what I mean.  They rarely even saw him in the studio or anywhere in the Product Development buildings for that matter.  

 

That does not really surprise me because historically the CEO's have never gotten too big into design details.  That's what the Design and Engineering managers are for and there are plenty of them as it is.  If the CEO had to be hands on with design that just meant the Design and Engineering managers were not good at their jobs.  


Nobody ever said he was hands on with anything.  He set a different mindset about how to do designs and set up a new design studio according to the articles.

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