I rode in Hyundai Pony taxis when I was stationed in Korea before the company came here. Still had a choke on the dash.
Posted on 05/04/2018 6:49:15 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ford's new CEO, Jim Hackett, just announced a bold strategic move for America's most enduring automaker: abandoning the car business. Hackett completely reversed former CEO Alan Mulally's full-line strategy to focus on trucks and SUVs. A 3 percent jump in Ford's stock price validated Hackett's decision, but that adrenaline shot could be short-lived. Jettisoning automobiles may prove fatal for Ford, leaving the market to GM and foreign producers.
Bowing to short-term shareholder pressures that felled predecessor Mark Fields, Hackett is undoing 115 years of Ford's automobile legacy. Unlike General Motors CEO Mary Barra, labelled a "car gal" for her 38 years in the business, Hackett has no experience in automobiles. He comes from thirty years of making furniture and most recently as interim athletic director at the University of Michigan.
Founder Henry Ford didn't create the automobile, but he turned it into "every person's vehicle" in launching the Model T in 1908. In 1913 he introduced the first moving assembly line. The following year he offered a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, doubling wages to $5 per day to enable his workers to enjoy an adequate standard of living and be able to purchase the cars they produced.
That rich history may seem irrelevant to today's global world. Not so. When Alan Mulally became CEO in 2006, he fully embraced Ford's heritage and restored its focus on automobiles, insisting Ford could make money in a full range of cars by being cost competitive with foreign automobile plants in the South....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Mine had the weakest V-8 I ever saw.
Buy a small 4WD/AWD SUV and a utility trailer.
Beat the trailer up when you have to haul junk. The rest of the time you have a fuel efficient, easy to park passenger vehicle.
My current combo is a 2004 Honda CR-V with a 5x10 trailer. Previous was a Subaru Legacy Outback. The Honda is rated 1500lb tow capacity in the US. In England, it is rated 1500kg. I called American Honda HQ to ask about the discrepancy (My CRV was built in England). Honda HQ said, “Oh, we have more lawyers.)
I pulled a 2WD Escalade & trailer out of the mud last month... uphill.
Northern Tool has me drooling over their new 6x12 Aluminum utility trailer!!!
It looks from here like Ford can’t or is too lazy to compete in the U.S. car market. OK, scratch them off my list if true.
This has been an ongoing project among the auto mfgr over the past few years.
Ford has been looking at this for some time now. Many autos are mfgr off shore
now.
Here are some articles about Ford considering moving to China from back in 2017
“Compacts and sedan sales are getting clobbered with maybe the exception of luxury sedans. People are buying the smaller crossovers instead.”
There are two possibilities.
#1 - Ford is ahead of everyone else. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, you name it. Ford is run by a true visionary.
#2 - Ford is committing suicide.
I think it’s #2.
Look anywhere you drive: there are Transits EVERYWHERE. Big ones, little ones, all shapes and sizes.
You answered your own question, a Transit.
I will say the LS series engine is one thing GM got right. I haven’t opened it once in 300k miles. Still has the original rings bearings and gaskets. Replaced multiple water pumps, but that’s the closest I’ve gotten to having to get inside the engine. It has had piston slap on a cold morning the whole time, but GM says that’s “normal”.
I had a landlord in Santa Barbara, who loathed Ford and all of his works, for the reasons you cite. He had worked at Ford’s years before and never forgave him for the conditions on the line.
You’re complaining about a 14 year old Truck having broken parts..
Geez you’re a tough customer.
“I’ve had mostly Fords since I owned the disastrous 1975 Chevrolet Nova.”
Had a 2002 Pontiac Bonneville. Great ride, good power, would break sitting in the driveway. A real polished turd.
Then there was GM not honoring warranties on 2007 and 2008 Impalas.
Bought a 2008 Ford Escape. It was so underpowered that it mangled the transmission trying to run highway speeds.
Currently, I drive a 2018 Hyundai Sonata. Excellent car, great gas mileage, very affordable. Hyundai, a Korean company, gave me $1000 off for being a veteran. GM and Ford do not offer that incentive. Go figure.
Problem is that you’ve got bigger and/or older folks who can’t fit in, get in/out of those tiny sardine cans auto makers are forced to crank out to get their CAFE numbers. We’d love to go back to at least one sedan, but I can’t fit in one.
Unless somebody brings back the original Scion xB or Nissan Cube. Those were fantastic.
Back in the Clinton years, Smith & Wesson went down the same disastrous road when it was acquired by a British organization that immediately appointed a president for S&W who knew nothing about American gun culture and negotiated a disastrous cartelizing agreement with the Clintonoids. Result: S&W’s previously loyal customers boycotted it, driving it into bankruptcy.
This guy is a nitwit who’ll put a lot of good people out of work and seriously hurt the economy.
exactly i would argue it is more American to buy a nissan of toyota from a southern right to work state than a unionized state.
Last good sedan Ford made was the Crown Vic/Lincoln Towncar on the Panther platform. Then they started shrinking the cars, cutting quality.
I have seen Transits in Germany and other places. They cannot handle the abuse and hard service that an E350 can. The metal chassis, the one ton frame, the stainless steel bumpers. We have survived stuff that would kill a lesser vehicle.
Again, I am heartbroken.
Yup, and in the industry I work part time in, many still insist on 12 hour work days.
I tell the young idiots that they are losing production per employee over 10.
They are stupid to understand.
I rode in Hyundai Pony taxis when I was stationed in Korea before the company came here. Still had a choke on the dash.
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