Scottwax said:
I am concerned but I am not going to buy a car I have no interest in because Ford and GM do not make a competitive mid sized car. The Mustang, Corvette, F-250 and the Cadillacs all appeal to me but what I need currently is a mid sized four door car priced in the low $20,000s to around $30,000 and I am sorry but nothing in the Ford or GM line-up in that catagory is appealing to me. The Ford Five Hundred could have class leading quality and resale but until Ford grows a brain and gives the car another 50-75 horsepower and a more sporting suspension option, I wouldn't even consider it. The Malibu? Ugh. What a hidous joke. GM couldn't have made it uglier if they did it on purpose. Sure you can get a 240 hp SS version but who wants a car that is nearly Aztec ugly?
Currently, only Dodge/Chrysler seem to really get it. They have sedans with great styling and you can actually get some of their 4 door cars with RWD and stong V8s.
GM, Ford and the unions are the ones killing the US auto industry, not the consumer. The automative industry needs to recognize that they need to build what consumers want to increase their sales, not that consumers need to spend $25000+ on stuff the don't want to bail out companies putting out a poorly styled and underpower product.
The horsepower issue of the Five Hundred gets addressed in February, 2007, with the 3.5 liter, 265 HP (on regular gas, not premium) V-6. Styling gets a bit updated with the Fusion type grill. I can't address the suspension issue. Basically, the suspension (including it's tuning) was borrowed from the Volvo S70 and XC90, so I'm not certain how "sporting" Ford would go. In any case, because all the major manufacturers are simplifying the assembly process, I'm not certain that suspension options will fly in a non-luxury car. Personally, I don't find the Five Hundred and Montego to be underpowered, so I'm not complaining.
I'm not going to be baited on the union comment - you're not an expert on the subject. I've spent the last twenty years as a vendor to the automakers, in and out of many of their plants, and for every legitimate complaint against the unions, there's something that some member of plant management is doing to either instigate a problem or aggravate an existing one. In any case, the contracts are being replaced with more competitive contracts, with the unions blessings. Not to mention that Ford and GM are slimming down their operations dramatically. Still, like any, and I mean
any , older American company, having any kind of legacy costs is diverting money from product development to paying other obligations.
The biggest problem with GM and Ford, and has been to a lesser degree with Chrysler Group, is how polarized the marketplace has been. Despite the comments that people make about the auto companies needing to make products that the consumer wants, it's not as easy as you want to make it out to be. The now older, traditional American car buyer, who thinks the split bench seat, RWD/body-on-frame, and column-mounted gear shift are great innovations, may be dieing off, but they paid the bills for decades at Detroit auto companies, and every attempt by Detroit to style products to appeal to import-leaning consumers was met with negativity by the old fogies. Chrysler's rear wheel drive 300 and Charger may appeal to some end of the market, but they haven't attracted any of the older crowd that Ford's Crown Vic used to attract. One thing that hurt Ford and GM was trying to appeal to all ends of the market. Ford screwed up trying to sell the Lincoln LS along side the the Town Car, and apparently GM saw that, and realized they couldn't do the same with Cadillac. Cadillac's edgy styling is working to attract new customers, but you have no idea how many traditional De Ville customers have been turned off by it. You can piss-and-moan about how much in the way of balls Ford & GM need to have to make design decisions, but Wall Streets gives no quarter if a publicly held company can't meet all it's financial obligations and give quarterly guidance that makes all the know-nothing analysts happy. Some of Toyota and Honda's stock may trade on the NYSE, but with the majority actually traded on the Japanese exchanges, the Wall Street analysts opinions have no influence on those firms.
