Ford F-150 Factory R/H drive for Australia

[arronm]

Who would buy a ranger if you could have an F150??? V8.....

[Fordman1]

Brazen,

Your argument is flawed;

“When you are selling 60,000 trucks a month even a slight design or engineering accomodation for right hand drive, will definately add up.”

RHD is a big deal when it is not “protected for” originally.

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by arronm

Who would buy a ranger if you could have an F150??? V8.....

Perzackly.....

[NX74205]

People who want them can already get them through aftermarket conversions. There's no reason for Ford to fork out on RHD development for a diminutive market.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by jpd80

That article is also from 2014, I think the situation might have changed in recent years...

Whats changed? They had no intention of bringing over F150 back then and they still don't now, they just blocked another company bringing in a competitor to their baby if they could reduce costs of their business model and bring it to market cheaper.

Ford Australia probably doesn't want to cannibalise sales of highly profitable Ranger and Ford USA probably doesn't want to invest money in touching their bread winner and it sells in volumes high enough in such a huge market that they'd never need to factor in extra costs to make it RHD friendly for the UK who wouldn't buy it because fuel there is $10000000000000000000000000/L and they have silly taxes on emissions and the rest of the RHD world is either tiny, protecting its market significantly (Japan) or 3rd world peasants who can't even use toilets, get paid $5 a month building cars or calling you at dinner time trying to sell you solar panels.

Lets see how the RAM 1500 goes, its cheap at $80K for the entry level model, cheap enough to start tempting someone who is buying top spec Ranger and Amarok.

Who the **** would buy any of those Thailand specials if you had American utes at similar price points?

Ford Australia went from being the Falcon company to being the Ranger company, you think they're willing to jeopardize their highest profit model?

BTW anyone with a spare $80K-$150K, buy a RAM, Chevrolet Silverado or Camaro, because you're helping keeping me employed

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Whats changed? They had no intention of bringing over F150 back then and they still don't now, they just blocked another company bringing in a competitor to their baby if they could reduce costs of their business model and bring it to market cheaper.

What FoA blocked was the bulk discount that was being to negotiated with Ford NA.
Five years on and they're still importing F series trucks to convert...

What they don't want to see is importers getting $10K-$15K discounts on F150 / f250 at the right time of the year and then using those converted trucks to steal away high series Ranger sales. In the past five years, those
high series Ranger sales have become just to important to FoA's survival
that nothing must disruptor reduce them...not even a converted F150.

You can be sure that once Ford NA realised what was going on, it too would have blocked those discounts.
Parallel imports are a vexing problem for the industry, the OEM doesn't want to deal with them but also wants
to limit the volume and pricing so as to not directly compete with existing on sale products.

so what's the difference between making Mustang in RHD and F Series?

The answer is the volumes being churned out every month:
F series = 3 plants @ over 100K/mth
Mustang = 1 plant on 2 shifts @ 10K/mth

In another thread, I gave the example of RHD export Mustang, the premium
GT is built in RHD and exported to Australia and on sale for roughly $9,000
more than the RRP of the LHD US Mustang GT premium. I could imagine that
Ford would charge similar for a Basic F150 delivered in RHD but to do that is
a lot of disruption and cost to US plants running three shifts around the clock,
Mustang plant on two shifts making around 10,000/mth, not so much.

Now that China has been separated from the old Ford Asia Pacific, Australia
now falls under Ford International, so any inquiries made by Peter Fleet on
behalf of the old region would now be null and void, he was looking at sourcing
the 3.0 Powerstroke diesel F150 for our region but also added that this would not
even be considered until next generation F150 - think that was code for waiting
until fuel prices ruled out any chance of it happening...

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by DJR-351

They couldn't sell enough to keep the Ford execs happy last time, even when they where assembled here, why does anyone think things are any different now......?

Because the number 1, 2 and 3 in monthly Australian car are usually Hilux, Ranger, sometimes Triton.
I doubt a 4x4 ute was in the top 10 in the early 2000's Everyone one wants large 4x4 now. No body wants sedans. Things are different now.

[au2000]

While ranger numbers are high in Australia, ford won't risk their sales with the F150, I get jpd's post re numbers and factories, but I think mustang being a lower sales number at 10,000 per month verses F150 at 100,000 per month but wouldn't the development cost be spread over say 100,000 sales make it easier to absorb compared to mustangs 10,000?
I think Australia's taste for 4x4 duel cabs that a factory converted F150 would do well,

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Because the number 1, 2 and 3 in monthly Australian car are usually Hilux, Ranger, sometimes Triton.
I doubt a 4x4 ute was in the top 10 in the early 2000's Everyone one wants large 4x4 now. No body wants sedans. Things are different now.

If the Government didn't hand out tax subsidies hand over fist for dual cab Utes, they probably wouldn't have sold in the numbers they do now.

Our federal government literally subsidised Australians to buy foreign manufactured cars, good work lads

[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Because the number 1, 2 and 3 in monthly Australian car are usually Hilux, Ranger, sometimes Triton.
I doubt a 4x4 ute was in the top 10 in the early 2000's Everyone one wants large 4x4 now. No body wants sedans. Things are different now.

Cheers, it was a rhetorical question, i know the answer.....

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by au2000

While ranger numbers are high in Australia, ford won't risk their sales with the F150, I get jpd's post re numbers and factories, but I think mustang being a lower sales number at 10,000 per month verses F150 at 100,000 per month but wouldn't the development cost be spread over say 100,000 sales make it easier to absorb compared to mustangs 10,000?
I think Australia's taste for 4x4 duel cabs that a factory converted F150 would do well,

It doesn’t work that way, RHD costs are quarantined to those markets, not spread across all other ALHD builds the advantage with Mustang was ARHD preservation in LHD allowed easier incorporation of RHD.

The other issue with F truck plants is as I said before, they are flat biscuit with LHDs so even finding RHD build allocation means giving up LHD builds for a more complicated truck needing more off line space for assembling slightly different dashes, retraining workers and working out spacing of builds- one in 100 or 1 in 200?

[simon varley]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Lets see how the RAM 1500 goes

April 2019

• Ranger 4x4 2737
• hilux 4x4 2702
• Colorado 4x4 1089
• Dmax 4x4 1002
• Triton 4x4 914
• Navarra 4x4 685
• Amarok 4x4 511
• Ram1500 + Ram2500 + Ram 3500 156

more combined than MB X-class (just) but not as many as LDV

[XR Martin]

6 month backlog for the Ram though

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by simon varley

April 2019

• Ranger 4x4 2737
• hilux 4x4 2702
• Colorado 4x4 1089
• Dmax 4x4 1002
• Triton 4x4 914
• Navarra 4x4 685
• Amarok 4x4 511
• Ram1500 + Ram2500 + Ram 3500 156

more combined than MB X-class (just) but not as many as LDV

It's being built by a small crew on three shifts building at a guess approximately into the teens a day - also all three are the most expensive vehicles on that list, 2500 and 3500 are circa $150K.

I still reckon the 1500 is going to move up the ranks.

[naddis01]

Landcruiser wagon and ute are averaging just under 2000 units combined per month this year. I know it's not going to happen, but I could see a factory RHD version of the new RAM, rather than the old one that ASV dish up, taking a fair chunk out of those numbers just for the towing brigade.

[simon varley]

I don't really know how Vfacts groups the trucks together. All the cars are grouped by size and $ value, but utes are only split as 4x4 and 4x2 which means the cheap Chines **** is lumped in with the premium euro stuff. F-series isn't recorded at all which seems odd, even as heavy commercial

[outback_ute]

Vfacts relies on what is reported to it, hence Tesla not appearing either.

I would be surprised if the F-series was RHD protected, and with potential RHD volumes I doubt they'd do even that. Ram is in a tricky position, there will be a good amount of initial demand, but over time it will settle back down. Fullsize pickups are too big for the inner suburbs and most off-street carparks IMO, being longer than the spaces and too wide; obviously there are plenty of other places they are very useful. My brother in law drove a 2-door Chev Blazer for a time and had enough trouble with that because of the width, there were places he just couldn't go if a car was parked the wrong way.

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

I still reckon the 1500 is going to move up the ranks.

I'm with You Franco....

Particularly if you will be doing any sort of semi serious Towing. Because quite frankly the 3.5 Tonne rated towing capacity of the Thai built Dual cabs is a deadset Crock of youknowwhat & dangerous to Boot.
I can also see it eating into Dual cab Landcruiser sales Too.

[naddis01]

Originally Posted by outback_ute

Vfacts relies on what is reported to it, hence Tesla not appearing either.

I would be surprised if the F-series was RHD protected, and with potential RHD volumes I doubt they'd do even that. Ram is in a tricky position, there will be a good amount of initial demand, but over time it will settle back down. Fullsize pickups are too big for the inner suburbs and most off-street carparks IMO, being longer than the spaces and too wide; obviously there are plenty of other places they are very useful. My brother in law drove a 2-door Chev Blazer for a time and had enough trouble with that because of the width, there were places he just couldn't go if a car was parked the wrong way.

The length and turning circle is the killer. The RAM 1500 is only marginally wider and marginally lower than a Landcruiser 200 but is around 800mm longer and has a turning circle of almost 14m.

Having side that, if you pick your parks it's not that bad.

[outback_ute]

Originally Posted by naddis01

The length and turning circle is the killer. The RAM 1500 is only marginally wider and marginally lower than a Landcruiser 200 but is around 800mm longer and has a turning circle of almost 14m.

Having side that, if you pick your parks it's not that bad.

The last part is the key. I'd need to check but I think minimum aisle width in a car park is about the same length as the Ram. As for width, with even small cars (Golf etc) now being 1800mm wide rather than <1700 when the regs were framed (with a 99th-percentile car being a Fairlane), you'd want to be lucky to be able to open the door enough to get out.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by naddis01

The length and turning circle is the killer.

Meh, I believe if you buy a car you should live with the consequences of your action.
No large ute is going to be easy to park and maneuver in tight spaces. If you care about this, buy a small hatch.
It's like buying a super car and saying it's useless because it can't carry your 5 kids and all their junk.

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Meh, I believe if you buy a car you should live with the consequences of your action.
No large ute is going to be easy to park and maneuver in tight spaces. If you care about this, buy a small hatch.
It's like buying a super car and saying it's useless because it can't carry your 5 kids and all their junk.

But there are plenty of people that do things like this. they don't do the due diligence.
even on this forum..

One bought a twin cab for their wife to drive, after getting stuck in a car park a couple of times they realized it wasn't suitable...

Another bought a moped as a cheap day to day transport then realizing its not safe..

Buying the petrol V6 version of a car over the diesel V6 because they thought it would perform better, later finding the diesel version was quicker

[Sprintey]

The country is what, 3% covered by urban environments at most? Rural population still larger than any individual city?

These big bold US pick ups would go very well in most of the country and are the only way to knock the LandCruiser off it's pedestal of prestige... And if you look at Toyota, much of their mythology stems from the Cruiser and its legend in the bush.

So yeah, lets not challenge that.

Go Ram!