Falcon is saved!

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

Do you think Ford US needs a Taurus? I think they sold 74,000 last year which might sound a lot however if, on a per cap basis it matched Falcon they should have sold around 380,000!!!

Incremental Scales of economy offered by D3 platform means that Taurus is part of 20,000 vehicles a month,
the future plan is to transfer it to Fusion platform so that it adds sales to the +20,000 vehicles there.

Closing down CV production shifts police sales to continuing Taurus/Explorer PI vehicles
and eliminates production capacity and workforce, improving Ford's return before a new PI is sold.

What does Ford do with rwd Falcon, awd/rwd Territory, fwd/awd Taurus, and some other premium rwd car?

Next Falcon development either shares engineering modules with Mustang program or with FWD/AWD Fusion/Taurus/Edge program.
Either one could be beneficial to FoA depending on what China's big car needs are, big car might be more to do with China's needs than Australia.

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

You just need to remember that Commodore sales are always shrinking by the month too, they have dropped to precarious numbers for them because they rely on volume levels much higher than Ford do.

I think the main difference in sales has been the Holden wagon, they sell quite a lot of them, but in theory the Territory is Fords stationwagon so if you combine Falcon and Territory you'd be pretty close to even.

Then Holden have the V8 which Ford has no answer for, they only have an answer to HSV's V8 with the FPV range.

People have moved away from large cars into SUV's and dual cab utes, while some have downsized. Simple as that really. They have so much more choice than they used too.

Fords pathetic efforts to sell and market the Falcon, and their inability to fend off the negative media reports and poor public sentiment have just added fuel to the downturn.

Good post, thanks for sharing that. More positive marketing is definitly required. If Ford give up on advertising the Falcon...

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Remember the XF was the last ever falcon, to be replace by a FWD 626 based product...


Wheels said so.

And they were right, because thats what Fords plan was, to replace XF with Project Capricorn, a stretched Mazda 929. Ford had already gotten as far as building full size models of it. They spent at least 2 years on it, before they realised it just wasn't going to work, because it just didn't look right. It was too long and skinny, and they couldn't widen it without big dollars.



Just think though, if XF was the highest selling Falcon ever, and Ford were still looking to replace it, just think what they must be thinking now that Falcons sales are now a fraction of what the XF's were.

There's no future with such pitiful sales.

[jpd80]

Are you going to keep this up with every post?

[Bossxr8]

Its the reality man, its pretty clear isn't it. I know not everyone wants to hear it but its just about rock bottom now. The sooner we except whats coming the better I think.

Do you think a company that was serious about saving their product would not bother advertising it. I'm sick to death of having to use leave all the time to cover my wages for down days because this damn company puts zero effort into selling their product. Its a joke.

You can't seriously believe Ford are going to invest another half a billion dollars here to sell less than 1000 cars a month do you?

I've even been told that even though there are only 14 working days next month Ford are still going to be running down days. I'd imagine Falcon will sell less than 900 this month and next month.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Its the reality man, its pretty clear isn't it. I know not everyone wants to hear it but its just about rock bottom now. The sooner we except whats coming the better I think.

Do you think a company that was serious about saving their product would not bother advertising it. I'm sick to death of having to use leave all the time to cover my wages for down days because this damn company puts zero effort into selling their product. Its a joke.

You can't seriously believe Ford are going to invest another half a billion dollars here to sell less than 1000 cars a month do you?

I've even been told that even though there are only 14 working days next month Ford are still going to be running down days. I'd imagine Falcon will sell less than 900 this month and next month.

So what happens when you have down days? You all don't show up to work and don't get paid?

Sounds like a casual job.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

So what happens when you have down days? You all don't show up to work and don't get paid?

Sounds like a casual job.

With a huge stockpile of unsold XR6s, Ford ran the plant on three day weeks from
around November 2010 to June last year but never really announced it in the press..
So back then, Ford controlled production costs and stock levels until the excess XR6s were sold down.

Don't forget either that before Cruze production began, Holden had its two shifts in Elizabeth on half work-half pay
because they couldn't afford redundancy payouts on top of the +$200 million Pontiac G8 write off.....
Companies do what they must to control costs and get by..