It's Official: Ford's Killing ALL of Their Cars--Except Mustang

[ZephyrEFI]

https://jalopnik.com/ford-will-phase...ica-1825544784

Stupid Stupid STUPID!! Can we think any more short term?! Remember 2008, you stupid, moronic mother#$%&ers??!! IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. GAS PRICES WILL GO UP!! And environmental laws WILL come back to sanity! There's no way around it!! And you are going to find yourselves with nothing anyone wants, and government fines for not meeting fuel economy regs up the ass! I want this company to survive long term, but apparently you're not interested in that. Even in the meantime, NOT EVERYONE WANTS A #$%&ING TRUCK! I don't even want your vaguely truckified Focus! In fact, I'd take an actual truck over one of those stupid things. At least it knows what it is!

I used to lease new Ford every couple of years, but that's over. Congratulations, Hackett. You're now officially stupider than Sergio Marchionne.

[wraithracing]

So Brad . . . How do you really feel about the news.

I agree that I believe long term its a bad decision. I think the issue is as much the fact that none of the Ford sedans are exciting is the issue as much as anything else. Maybe I am wrong, but I see plenty of Camrys, Accords, Lexus IS, Mercedes C, Nissan Maximums, etc. out on the roads. So someone is buying sedans.

[OX1]

So Brad . . . How do you really feel about the news.

I agree that I believe long term its a bad decision. I think the issue is as much the fact that none of the Ford sedans are exciting is the issue as much as anything else. Maybe I am wrong, but I see plenty of Camrys, Accords, Lexus IS, Mercedes C, Nissan Maximums, etc. out on the roads. So someone is buying sedans.

I have a new Fusion Sport. They run 12.8's with a tune
(can 60' mid to low 1.8's, if launched well). 325/380 stock
with AWD.

Mine has sway bars and PSS 4S tires. Pulls upwards of
a G according to Harrys Lap Timer ap I got. Very comfy DD
and a single button firms the shocks/steering nicely and runs out
the RPM's a bit more.

Could use a bit more braking for really aggressive driving.
I just ordered EBC reds and some better rotors for it, will
see.

Not sure how much more excitement one would want
for a family sedan that can be had in the mid to highs 20's
(for the base, but it really has everything I needed, even heated
power seats).

[ZephyrEFI]

They made the same mistake they did back in the 2000s. Right around 2013 when the new Euro-based Fusion came out, they had a great line-up! But then... they just let them stagnate and the competition moved on. The change of management needing something to point the finger at, so they just left them the same year after year. "Hey look! No one's buying them!" Well, what do you expect?!

[fairmonster]

Too bad Ford isnt doing exciting things, like in my opinion Chrysler has done. Chrysler has done some flat out cool things in the last several years. Their R/T and SRT/8 options are available across model lines.

[ZephyrEFI]

Too bad Ford isnt doing exciting things, like in my opinion Chrysler has done. Chrysler has done some flat out cool things in the last several years. Their R/T and SRT/8 options are available across model lines.

I agree they missed SEVERAL opportunities to cash in on a little 'Mer'ca nostalgia with RWD V8 sedans or SUVs. There were a number of times they were looking at doing it, but crapped out and banked on the LAME D3 FWD chassis instead. That Mustang chassis is BAD-ASS. Wasting it on only the Mustang is a crime.

[NY5speed]

I can't see this being permanent, it is certainly short-sighted and profit-motive driven. Obviously crossovers are becoming more and more popular but I still see plenty of sedans on the road around here including lots of current gen Fusions and Foci. I have a '14 Fusion SE 2.0EB that just hit 75k and has been great, I grabbed a 2017 Fiesta ST in October because I knew that was going to get killed off. Seems like waste to just surrender the regualar automotive market to the competition.

[wraithracing]

Ford made the same stupid move with the Ranger many years ago when they decided they weren't selling enough of their old tired Ranger. Fast forward a few years and guess what's coming back . . . I swear NO ONE at Ford has ever taken or Passed a History lesson.

[Matt J]

The real risk is to the American factory worker. When gas is back up to $4+ per gallon and folks are looking for more efficient options, or when the economy inevitably slows down and folks can't afford to buy a $65,000 truck, demand will fall and Ford will likely move back to the smaller (read: cheaper) cars and sedans. But they're going to be importing them all. Not to mention that in the US there's still a strong appetite for trucks, but every day when I'm driving into ATL here in the south and home of the V8 (no complaints here) I see a constant stream of Teslas and other hybrid and full electric cars on the roads. Folks tastes are changing, and agree with them or not, some people are looking at lower polluting solutions for getting from point a to b. I'd be happier to hear that Ford is working on better hybrid tech and focusing on driving that for the future instead of trucks. I know they're doing some of that too, but it just doesn't look good to be emphasizing old markets.

[gmatt]

All of their eggs are going to be in one basket......"Ford said it won’t invest in new generations of sedans for the North American market, eventually reducing its car lineup to the Mustang and an all-new Focus Active crossover coming next year. By 2020, almost 90 percent of its portfolio in the region will be pickups, SUVs and commercial vehicles."
http://start.att.net/news/read/artic...tegory/finance

[ZephyrEFI]

I thought of a couple of different ways to look at it.

1) Ford knows (I would hope they do anyway) that we Americans know about what they sell in other markets. Maybe they're hoping to drum up interest by going back to forbidding the fruit.

2) This may open the door for more interesting niche cars. Right now, Ford needs a Fusion sized car to compete in the mid-size segment. It needs to be a Camry beater. BUT, if they were to forfeit that market they could just do something COOL, rather than something that needs to fight for Accord buyers. Remember how cool the Contour was for us enthusiasts in the '90s? It didn't fail because it wasn't a capable car, it failed because it didn't win over Camry buyers. It lacked in many things Camry buyers look for, especially rear seat space. But if you pull the Camry template away, it was a sweet little car! AWD, V6, manual, all the luxury options of the day...

Anyway, though, they could bring over completely un-Americanized Euro models. Except for stuff like crash standards. Another thought occurs to me. The Fusion platform accepts RWD, as we know from the new Explorer/Aviator, so they could certainly do something cool with that.

Now will they do either of these things? Absolutely not.

[FuturaGuy]

That's what happens when you have a CEO of a car company who isn't a car guy. I'll stand by something I've said before - the car makers, especially Ford, don't make any cars that the Beach Boys would want to sing about.

[xctasy]

Yep, that sedans are dead in the future. The Camry is like the Maxima, a Gene spliced, Drawn, Hanged and Quartered 1990 Corona with G,D, H and Q modifications. The MPV Toyotas down here use the Camry base, and the CUV versions of it was the great white hope that ToyMoter could make a one size fits all platform work economically. It doesn't. Toyota will have a hard landing like Ford did with its sedans.


Ford Australia pulled out of the market, and Toyota has the Camry all to itself. The Camry is Ultimate Appliance. The only reason it survives is because when Toyota messes up its quality programs, it then spends billizions on re gaining favour in customers eyes.

Where is the Celica now?

This is a little like the Robert L McNamara moment of killing the two place T bird in 1957.



Its grease Lightening!






Fords getting back to core business. Taking Eggs from the hen hutch to the Close.



Gas axe off the roof, and get back to two and three box, Sweet Lorretta Martin...


Two or three box cars accomodate Loretta Fart, who thought
she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan..


So the death of the six place 81" wide 60 Ford is because of the New Increasingly Urbanized America that no longer tollerates the "three on the tree" and the "bench front seat."


Might as well get used to it....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWOeCR4xVQo




Electronic Stability Control and M**f's with dawgs and childern govern automotive design. It happened in France, Australia and New Zealand and Britian first....So we can make 1996 Explorer style cars with 60" height handle and do a safe International Lane change at 100 mph with the dog and the three and a half kids, a live to tell the tail.

History is Bunk, Henry Ford 1916.

"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916).

From a lover of square back notched Ford Sedans.


Everything is going bacTards thru' the years, cars are getting taller going back thru' the ammendments Raymond Lowery at Studebaker and Richard Caleal made to create the 49 er Ford


Similar to what E.T. "Bob" Gregorie did on a larger scale to make the Led Sled 1949 Mercury.



https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hc...d/1281265.html



Four box cars were a Ford invention IMHO.

FoMoCo is checkin out the cost verses benifit on every configuration, and the public is going back to the wide body "full width" 1941 Fords, three boxers. The trunk and the six or seven seater option is just whatcha got in your Transit Transconnect. That's an MPV, but really, its just a hatch wide body 1941 FORD.


Just needs a V8 or maybee a hybridized V8 to make it like the old 1941 er.

[gr79]

Hey corporate Ford: Your computer marketing program may have been hacked to give bad stats.
Forgotten how to make American style cars or what? The middle ground. Slow down and come down to earth.
More profit is the passion? Rebuilding team again? Cutting back may be false economy.
Address your obscene crazy factory shift schedules that employees hate but pay well? Product suffers from this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence.
-Repair costs ≥ replacement cost, or product is not serviceable.
-Products designed for aesthetic rather than functional reasons: The fashion cycle theory. We are on to it.

Mary Barra https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...a-gm/21834271/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra -car girl, native Detroiter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Marchionne -car guy, underrated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_..._(businessman) -small time bean counter, non automotive car killer.

Few automotive execs go down in history anymore like the famous names from the past. Why?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...mer_executives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._Motor_Company


D. Petersen (Ford CEO 1985-1990) "was famously known for instructing the Ford design staff to design vehicles they would be proud to buy and park in their own driveways."
In 1968, L. Iacocca "foresaw the need for domestically produced, small, fuel-efficient vehicles, and proposed a vehicle that weighed less than 2,000 pounds and would be priced at less than $2,000."

Henry Ford did not invent, nor compete making, high priced products in his era.
Simply af-Fordable simple products and good wages. 8 hour days, no slave shift hours like now.
Strange history with unions. John DeLorean's father Zachary was as a union organizer at the Ford Motor Company.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Ford

[ZephyrEFI]

You could argue Alan Mullaly wasn't a car guy, but I think he really knew what he was doing and did right by Ford. Under his care, was only the second time in recent history that Ford REALLY put their best foot forward and fielded a good product. The first time was the first Taurus, which Mullaly was a fan of how that was executed and modeled his own strategy after it. He pried some extra money out of the hands of the bean counters, and brought us the Ford of Europe based lineup of 2013. And God said that it was very, very good. As far as I can remember, at that point, those cars sold nearly as well as most of the competition. AAaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnd then, same old story, the good CEO leaves, and the new guys follow the shiney keys of truck profits and forgets about everything else. It's shameful.

I'm assuming these sorts of moves (killing sedans) are being made possible by a neutering of the EPA, otherwise, they'd be getting fines up the ass for not meeting fuel economy standards. Well, hey guys, we won't always have an executive with no conscience, and automotive development schedules tend to be too long to be able to correct for something like a sudden economic collapse. Do I really need to say these things "out loud"? I guess I do! I need to go and teach Mr. Hackett "Automotive Company CEO 101".

[ZephyrEFI]

A good article. I hadn't thought of the significant factor of how the car market is currently on a bubble of too-long loan periods and people buying stupid-expensive trucks they can't afford!

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/04/27/...affordability/

[mustangxtreme]

Allan Mullaly is a smart man. He did a great job when he worked for Boeing.

A good article. I hadn't thought of the significant factor of how the car market is currently on a bubble of too-long loan periods and people buying stupid-expensive trucks they can't afford!

I have thought vehicles have been over-priced for years. Which is why the the last new car I bought was in 97. I can't justify the $$$ for a new vehicle. For the kind of money these cost, I can do a whole lot of repairs on what I have and I don't have the payments.

[dtmilsap]

What car will Ford race in nascar after they quit make the fusion?

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[flyin5-o]

what car will ford race in nascar after they quit make the fusion?

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Who cares!?!?!

[Tigger]

What car will Ford race in nascar after they quit make the fusion?

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Supposedly the Mustang in 2019

[homer302]

What car will Ford race in nascar after they quit make the fusion?

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Actually we had that answer in January. The Mustang.

[gmatt]

They're basically forcing people who might want a sedan to buy an import. Or buy used.

[KevinK]

I have not read much on all this but my take is Ford does not plan to make full sized sedans such as the Crown Vic. I see the police car migrated to the Explorer and such. Maybe that's all there is to it for now. They pretty much announced that a while back for Lincoln. I see now the have reintroduced a sedan. Not sure what platform its on.

[ZephyrEFI]

... Lincoln. I see now the have reintroduced a sedan. Not sure what platform its on.

Oh that? So, funny story. That is the Continental. The car they shouted from the rooftops would finally begin Lincoln's turnaround. Only it was all a lie. The Continental rides on the Fusion platform. FWD/AWD based. Not so strange, seeing as how everything up to that point on that platform was that way, right? WRONG. We now learn, that platform supports REAR WHEEL FREAKING DRIVE! And hey, guess what, Lincoln rolls out yet another Ford-based boring-ass FWD sedan and... no one buys it! I submit to you, the Continental was designed to fail, right from the beginning. I think they KNEW slapping a nostalgic name on it wouldn't be enough. The $%#&ing product still needs to be APPEALING! Luxury buyers spending as much as a Continental costs, DON'T WANT FWD!!

They KNEW!! They KNEW they were stopping JUST SHORT of it being an actual great sedan that might actually sell. They didn't want it to sell. The Continental was conceived to prove a point: sedans don't sell. Well, no, Ford. S&%$ty sedans don't sell. Great job. "Look, we really tried this time! Even named it a beloved nostalgic name from our past!" Yeah, you did. Shame on you.

This one makes me really angry. I'd love to see Lincoln actually going all-in on being a great luxury brand, but nope. Truck profits. That's all that matter.

[homer302]

Oh that? So, funny story. ....
This one makes me really angry. I'd love to see Lincoln actually going all-in on being a great luxury brand, but nope. Truck profits. That's all that matter.

I only quoted because I love your passion. I too love Lincoln and think it could do well. My ideas are different maybe than yours though. And that's okay. I am not sure about you but I was around when the Mark VII 5.0 HO was in showrooms and Cadillac had the Cimarron. I will pause while you readers go search what the heck a Cimarron is................................................ ......................
Lincoln was crushing Cadillac. Now my goodness are the tables certainly turned. I don't believe there is an American "couch on wheels" buyer left alive that has any buying power. The old Town Cars, Buick Estate, Cadillac Fleetwood...nobody wants a 2018 version of those. And yet Lincoln so stubbornly sticks to that template.

That IS where we agree. I think it might have been designed to fail as well. Never thought of it until you said it. They just seem completely oblivious to all the success that Cadillac continues to have for over a DECADE by having a PERFORMANCE premium brand. (anyone in the room ever heard of a CTSV???? go google CTSV drag race or CTSV top speed run or whatever you want). They are EXTREMELY desirable. I believe they just recently lost the MANUAL 6 SPEED option a couple years ago. Most hilarious because they stole it from Ford and then Ford abandoned it.