Posted on 01/07/2007 7:50:16 AM PST by Flavius
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- The challenge from Ford Motor Co.'s top brass was daunting: Take an old car and a bland one and make them better. Don't change their basic frames and footprints, but make them look and feel new. And by the way, the future of the company is at stake, because if they don't sell, the automaker could run out of money.
hat's what Ford designers and engineers faced when they set out to update the aging Focus small car and the slow-selling Five Hundred full-sized sedan.
The company will unveil new versions of both models this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. A lot is riding on them when they hit the showrooms later this year as 2008 models, especially if consumers continue to shift from trucks and sport utility vehicles to cars.
"Certainly there's pressure," Lon Zaback, chief designer of the Focus, said recently as he walked around the car explaining its new features. "I don't feel any anxiety about it at all because I think we've done a terrific job."
Ford has mortgaged its assets to borrow up to $23.4 billion to fund a massive restructuring plan and cover billions in losses expected until 2009. The company, which lost $7 billion in the first nine months of last year, expects to burn up $17 billion in cash during the next two years.
Analysts say the company desperately needs sales to raise cash if it hopes to survive.
The compact Focus, first introduced in 1999, now looks old and clunky. The Five Hundred generally is perceived as good but underpowered and pedestrian.
First the company did market research to figure out what needed to change.
With the Focus, Zaback and the redesign team knew they would be limited by the car's current architecture in their efforts to modernize the company's entry in the small car market.
They raised the sheet metal on the sides, shrinking the window size to give it a sloping, sportier look, with horizontal creases in the sheet metal. There's more chrome on the grille, mimicking Ford's successful Fusion mid-sized car, and the hood became more rounded.
"The car appears to be a little bit shorter and have shorter overhangs. It has a much more sporty appearance because of some of the proportional things we did with it," Zaback said.
The interior is simple but modern with nicer seats, lighted cupholders and more expensive materials including a brushed aluminum look for the dashboard and blue instrument lighting.
The new Focus also is among the models to get the optional Ford-Microsoft "Sync" system that integrates cell phones and personal music players into the car's electronics, something Ford hopes will appeal to younger buyers.
"There's a night-and-day difference between today's Focus and the new one. We really improved it," said Greg Burgess, the vehicle development manager.
While the designers were at work, engineers were busy going over all the existing car's parts, refining the two-liter four-cylinder engine, steering and suspension. Although horsepower figures weren't released, Ford said they made the car more powerful while reducing its weight by about 100 pounds. It will be at least as fuel efficient as the current model, which gets 37 miles per gallon on the highway, said Marcio Alfonso, the chief engineer.
The Five Hundred got a less-radical redesign with changes in the front grille and rear lights and fenders to make it look more sporty and more like the Fusion.
The body didn't change much, but the car gets a modernized interior and a new 3.5-liter V6 engine with 60 more horsepower and a six-speed automatic transmission. It should be as fuel efficient and much quieter than the old one even though its zero-to-60 acceleration time is 1.5 seconds faster, Ford said. Market research showed that buyers thought the old versions were underpowered, Ford said.
It also will get optional electronic stability control, something that should get it back on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's list of safest cars, said Killol Bhuta, the car's marketing manager.
"It was always good. We just made it better," Bhuta said.
The Five Hundred, built on Volvo architecture, sold moderately well in 2005, its first full year on the market, but sales nose-dived last year from almost 108,000 to about 84,000, something Ford hopes the redesign will reverse. Focus also saw its sales drop last year to just over 177,000, down more than 100,000 from a peak of around 286,000 in 2000.
Ford said it hasn't set prices on either the Five Hundred, which hits showrooms in the summer, or the Focus, which comes in the fall.
Several analysts who have seen the new Fords say the changes are good steps but may not be enough to fend off sharper, newer designs from the competition.
Erich Merkle, director of forecasting for the auto consulting company IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, said the new Focus, for instance, still doesn't look as modern as Honda's Civic, which he considers to be the gold standard for small cars.
"It's a step forward, but it's not a dramatic leap," he said. "Unfortunately the competition is really moving forward in that segment."
He and Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst at Global Insight, an economic research and consulting company, said Ford may not have had the cash to redo the Focus completely, a charge that Ford denies.
Merkle said Ford could have brought the superior European Focus to America instead of remaking the U.S. version.
"Ford does a lot of things that sometimes I just scratch my head over," he said.
Lindland likes the new Focus but said the Five Hundred still is too conservative to set it apart from competitors.
"In order to attract people into a showroom, you need to have something that's going to turn people's heads," she said. "It's not cutting edge at all."
The people working on the new cars, though, think otherwise.
"Our mind-set hasn't changed regardless of what our financial position is," said Beth Donovan, Ford's small car marketing manager. "We want to win."
On the Net: http://www.ford.com
Those fords are what the public wants but not neutered pip squeek engings.
Ford is totally stuck on stupid.
It seems they are doing desperation design to the least common denominator.
The days when a bankrupt chrysler can make a k car and survive on gone. The cheepest import often has more features than the top of the line version of a particular ford model.
When the CEO is buying a Toyota (lexus whatever) it speaks VOLUMES to the survivability of ford.
I wish they would build those GT's for the masses rather than a bait and switch beauty queen for the show room.
The Power Strokes are, but the older IDI diesels were not...
From what I hear, it is just a restyling due to declining Titanic and Hindenburg sales.
;-)
not to mention the fact that all the ford commercials are directed to the angry divorced woman and the only men in their commercials are seem to be metrosexual wusses or p***y w****ed wimps.
Not exactly an image a normal male wants to portray with his car purchase for him or his family. I take my dollars elsewhere.
I just started thinking about a new car. Out of habit I looked to Ford first. Except for the Mustang, they don't have a thing I would be seen driving. And even the interior of the Mustang seems cheap somehow (no offense to new Mustang owners but I've driven Mustangs my whole driving life and it's not what it used to be). I've narrowed it down to a GTO, Monte Carlo, and maybe on the outside chance the Gran Prix. Ford better do something because there's not a good looking one out of the lot
I think the T-bird was doomed to failure because by the time they realized it was seriously under powered, they were stuck with sucker marketing. (they tried to push that under powered was coooool. weakness is strenghth)
also it seemed it was not designed to the straight male. You are too generous to say neutered metrosexual.
If anything they should read what custom car kids are putting under the hood and what they want.
the mercury marauder was a good concept. A sleeper muscle in a tame exterior.
If ford wants to save their auto line they should include a rear seat fold down pass through for ALL their cars. That feature is just plain convenient in a passenger car.
Ford's suits think that with the right spin and a magic commercial they can target market any vehicle.
They are wrong.
My wife and I went to look at the then new thunderbird around 2000 or so. I asked them about fins and would the next year have fins.The manager told me that i could buy it and put fins on it.I told him for 40,000 bucks this miata on steriods better come with fins! Who in the hell do they have designing this sh*t? Best thing ford has is the mustang GT and the Ford GT and that wont carry the company.
You are 110% correct.
People are tired of being bruned by the false promises of Ford.
Hubba-hubba.
All they have to do is import some diesel engines, freshen the Focus, and let you put any engine into any vehicle.
They'd sell zillions.
Hi! :-)
From what I have read, the Gran Prix is a pretty nice machine.
Spot on! Unfortunately, I doubt Ford will "get it".
Whatever, chump.
I have a heck of a lot more in common with hardworking, honest foreigners than with the lazy slobs down at the union yard.
Are you a "union man?"
Well, I'm all ears. Go ahead and explain it, pal. That way, we'll both know what the hell you're talking about.
I suggest you go back to Post#89 and follow our discussion from there.
Hey honey look at my Mexiford!
http://www.leftlanenews.com/2007/01/07/2008-ford-five-hundred-debuts/
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