Why doesnt Ford have http://www.pontiac.com/g8/ something like that.

My Boss (whose father sells and has sold Toyotas for **** near 30 years and imparted toyo brand loyalty on him) is considering a new car, all set to buy a Camry - However I mention to him having heard anything about a Pontiac G8, which at the time I could best describe as the domestic equivalent of a BMW. Now he is really interested in the car and is actually considering the purchase of one when it becomes available.

Now onto my lament, Why doesn't Ford have a competitor in this market? Chrysler has the Charger, Pontiac will have the G8, Chevy probably the Impala, and Ford has.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... ....??????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ?????

Nothing, the big 0 , not a single thing I can think of, and it saddens me , (the real *** kicker, this guy loved the Lincoln LS) not to be able to try and bring this guy into the fold. He loves my 07 GT, His fiance is ready to dump her Scion TC because we were playing around on the road the other day and all I could say was "Man, check out the G8, it's a killer car, if I had a family and I was looking for a nice ride, it'd be this or a charger, but the G8 seals the deal with a better interior".

How hard would it have been to take, say the S197 chassis and engineer it to accomodate a longer wheel base and two extra doors at the time of conception?

Why doesn't Ford have a V8 sedan with a nice chassis and a DOHC 5.4 making 360+ hp in a sub 40k car to compete in this segment????

 

Yeah, those Aussies are making some pretty cool cars, truly modern muscle cars that actually can turn, stop and cruise with their up-to-date chassis, interiors and refinement.

Ford USA on the other hand has been bumbling around for the past decade or so with one insipid new rental fleet model after another.

They held on to the Taurus way too long until even the most milquetoast CPA couldn't stomach to be seen in one.

The Ford 500 is, at best, competent but a 50lb brick of Viagra couldn't raise its emotional excitement beyond the light-coma level.

The Fusion? Think rebodied Mazda 6 with the zip and Ă©lan carefully engineered out. “Hello Hertz, need to some fleet cars, cheap?”

The Grand Marquis (de Sade)? Too old for my grandfather's grandfather to have contemplated giving his horse up for. The only thing more depressing than finding yourself in one of these would be to find yourself in a casket -- with these two scenarios being disturbingly close together statistically.

There's been some talk about using the S197 platform for more than the Stang, which, making excellent sense, will likely doom that idea in the Byzantine halls of Ford management. Instead, they'll spend upteen millions in marketing trying to glom the stale Taurus name on the stolid 500 to achieve, well, I just can't figure that one out.

Meanwhile, Pontiac is coming out with a poor-man’s 5-Series BMW with the announced GT model only the moderate boil level – I give them within a year to drop in the LS3 and all the rest of the high-octane treatment of the Aussie V-Series model to give Dodge/Chysler’s great booming Hemi 6.1 SRT-8 models a run for the money.

 

lol, thanks for the inadvertant spelling correction

Back on topic, it almost seems as if Ford is sticking thier collective heads in the sand and as you stated (with perhaps one exception) have made BLAND the corperate policy and what a shame, I fancy myself a Ford man, but it seems all I really am is a Mustang man, with little or no interest in any other Ford product (current inventory).

GM has a whole slew of great products in the pipeline with a turn around plan based on those great products rather than one consisting of trying to merely make the company profitable on shrinking sales volume and milking their one stellar product with endless variations of a car that is beyond the reach of the average enthusiast - Is Ford in such sorry shape that the truth to the matter is they don't have the resources to even comptemplate even trying?

 

What hapened to the Interceptor? Wasn't the 400 HP sedan concept rolled out at the detroit show? Is it going to be built?

 

Not for a few years if that. They haven't given it any official word on greenlighting the project. The thought is that the next-gen Aussie RWD platform that is in development will be set up for North American sales. Hope this is true.

 

i think ford is being careful to not burn prescious money on a segment that wont bring huge profits like the midsize fwd sedan segment. i think too many people on these boards do not realize that the big three dont make tons of money on enthusiasts like us, and the forum engineering we do. they make money on the cars that move off the lot fast, like anything that can haul a family. So give it a bit. because look at it this way. the charger/300 seems to be falling flat on its face right now. i think the cheap garbage interior is to blame on that one. so now the g8 is coming out, which is what i would buy between the two because of the third pedal. I want an interceptor real bad as well, my friends saw pics of it and they all said the first thing they thought of was me pulling up to their place in one. anywho. ford cant go spending a ton of money developing one, if the market is gone anyway. lets get out of the hole first. because dont forget, the highest selling car in the country is almost the complete opposite of an enthusiasts car. its a family sedan that is as invigorating to drive as sitting in a waiting room. i dont mean to hate on anything, but i think some guys have to step back and look at some facts.

 

Ford needs to bring the upcoming 2008 Mondeo to the US, otherwise it'll lose its market share in the class completely. Then, to make it even more appealing to muscle car fans with families, they only need to plant a V8 in it and make it compete price-wise with the Charger/300C.

 

I totally agree. The Camry and Accord sure aren't performance cars and they outsell pretty much everything except the F-Series and Silverado.

Exactly....

 

Good points all. Lets hope FoMoCo can get back to profitabliity first, the goodies will follow. For starters, they've got to get the superduty mess straightened out right away, that's their cash cow, and if they lose too much market share there it'll be hard to get those loyal truck guys back. It's been proven over and over again that quality will win out in every auto category. So I for one hope they don't sacrifice the quality of whatever they build to try to get back in black ink. They've got to not only keep the loyal Ford customers, but win over some of the other "brand loyalists" as well. They'd better not ever let the Tundra overtake the F150!

 

as long as fords chassis, towing capability and durability are held up people will come back. however i do agree that the mess must be straightened, they do create the biggest profit margin from the super duty. I remember when the excursion stopped production they started it again 6 months later because they made too much money per truck to let it go.

 

I agree, the Mondeo is an awesome car.
Looks very nice.

 

Sounds like an amazing idea looking at those Iosis concept photos ... but looking at the production Mondeo

 

And how do you propose to get out of the hole?

Ford would be unwise to carry on building Camry and Accord also-rans, because the Japanese are years ahead in customer loyalty and perception. What Ford needs to do is build cars that are just as good, but have a higher design and excitement quotient in order to get a higher percentage of people to give them a second look. The Fusion's not doing bad, but it's not good enough to steal any leadership crowns from Hondoyota.

Ford needs a homerun in this segment; a car that generates the same level of excitement in its segment as the Mustang has captured in the RWD performance coupe segment.

 

Again, you can't steal any crowns in this segment by building cars that ape Camrys and Accords. You've got to come up with something that is exciting enough to lure people away from Hondoyota loyalty. You've got to raise the bar.

 

I was talking V8 RWD Sedan, but the FWD stuff is important too, I wonder how the rebirth of "Total Performance" would go down - It just doesn't have to be horsepower, but Total Performance could include fuel effeciency, super low emmissions, ect. Many was to play the card, but the common should be setting the bar, not following it.

 

IMO, what Ford should have done was to actually build the Iosis as close to the concept as possible, and make it a full scale Camry/Accord competitor. No more excuses about why it can't be done, blah, blah, blah, "just do it," as the Nike slogan says.

Had they done so, I believe it would have changed the game overnight. Even its name is cool.

What a fantastic design. It was even one of the finalists at the prominent auto beauty contest of cars – the Concours d’Eleganza Villa d’Este held in Italy >>

 

i must say outside of that body line the iosis is pretty close. however the trick is selling them in the states

 

I just noticed something: the front fender/heat extractor design of the Iosis concept show car looks very similar to the RX8




In fact the Iosis concept looks a lot like an enlarged RX8 with some Aston/Jag XK in the rear roofline and a Ford grille....

 

Seriously if the Iosis was actually produced it would be the next car on my list to buy. hands down.