Overall -10%

Crossover sales are +145%.

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2...01/069342.html

 

-10% is good compared to what it had been. Great news on Crossovers, and if you toss out the fleet sales and just compare retail-retail, total Ford-brand cars were only down about 700. Starting to look like the market share downslide is done and we can start looking for the upswing .

 

I think November will be the first month where you'll really be able to tell since the last of the old fleet-only Tauri were sold in October 2006.

 

And with Toyota quality in the commode (now FJ Cruiser chassis are tearing in half), I can only hope Ford takes advantage of this "opening in the line" to try and pull off a touchdown or two with at least some of its forthcoming products.

 

It is looking quite good. It seems mustang sales have been tanking though.

 

If i was in the market i wouldnt be buying a stang now when in a year theres gonna be a new more powerful mustang, and the new camaros out.

 

Sport'n car sales of any sort, Pony car included, are really style conscious, i.e., they need to be freshened much more than, say, a family-car Fusion. Despite some SE's, I don't think the meat of the Mustang lineup (V6 and GT) has changed all that noticeably since the S-197 intro three years ago, and quite predictably, sales are tapering off. Sadly, this is an all-too-common Ford habit. The Probe GT went from numerous "10 Best," "Car of the Year," etc. accolades to cancelled in four years when it was basically left to whither on the vine with inconsequential trim updates.

Retro designs, IMO, already start half a lap back in that, by their very nature, there's already some level of pre-existing familiarity -- good for instant recognition early on, bad for "seen that for 40 years" ennui 3 years out. And the '08 is basically still the same save for some minor option and color changes that only dyed-in-the-wool Stang enthusiasts would ever notice.

The Bullitt will create a small spike and sales blip, but it too really is hardly more than a well done trim package with the usual FRPP bits sprinkles on. It's not like they are doing something truly cool like dropping in the 5.4 or IRS or something equally substantive. Sure, there's undoubtedly three dozen good, sober, rational reasons why not, but in the end ... yawn ... the average fashion-forward sporty car buyer is going to walk past the last season's sale rack for the hot, new fashions that'll get them noticed.

I think for Ford to keep the Stang sales galloping, they really need to figure that every two years, some substantial performance (add 25+ hp, retuned suspension, better brakes...) and style (at least new bumper caps, interior finishes, latest electronics/ICE) to stay in the game. And every four years, a substantial overhaul, ala '99 Stang level at the least). And every six years, essentially a clean sheet redesign. Expensive, yes, but if they ain't man enough to sit at this high stakes poker game, then they ought just to slink off to the quarter slots.

This is especially troubling given that the Mustang has no real direct competition and yet, it's already falling back in a race of one. It doesn't bode well for when the all new Camaro and Challenger burst onto the scene -- the '09 refresh better be pretty darned extensive and good.

 

Autoblog was wayyyy off. They put Ford's sales at a -13%. I added up Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Land Rover, Jaguar, and Volvo and ended up with only a decrease of 9.27%

 

F*ck all this whining about "retro"! Good design is good design; retro has little, if anything, to do with it. Is it any coincidence, do you suppose, that some of the most striking looking cars on the road today are "retro" (Stang, Mini Cooper, forthcoming Camaro, etc)? Hell, even Ferraris are a natural evolution of their former greatness, maintaining the same basic long hood, short rear deck, RWD performance configuration.

On the other hand, Japanese cars all look somewhat the same: melted bars of soap or jellybeans. Even the new Nissan GT-R front end rips off the last generation Celica.

So what IS an all new design, exactly?

Three years old or not, the Mustang still has one of the best coupe profiles out there, and it doesn't look like ANY other car on the road...unlike many manufacturers' models. "Hmmmm, is that a Corolla up ahead in the distance, or an IS350"

 

Thanks God somebody else is saying it too. (and Hollywood and I actually agree on something...) For a coupe the new Mustang is demonstrating phenomenal staying power. Put bluntly, by the time the SN95 was this old in either bodystyle you could easily get several thousand dollars off a GT. Heck, I came within a nats backside of buying a 98 SVT Cobra for for 21k plus TTT new on the lot before the first 99 model ever dropped. That represents a huge amount off of the cars sticker price even considering it was ten years ago. If anyone here thinks we'll be able to buy a 2009 GT500 for such a spectacular deal even after the 2010's show up I heartily suggest a reality check. I'd be pleased to be able to buy a 2009 GT500 at sticker.

The term retro may be the most overused part of the whole phenomenon. IMO cars like the Mini, Mustang, and 911 aren't retro, they simple look like they should.

 

Dude what are you on? They look nothing alike

 

and yea its good to see that the gap is closing in overall sales for Ford....soon enough they'll start showing some posotive numbers

 

I thought that was you in my rearview mirror.

Amen.

And yeah, I neglected to mention the 911 - that's an even better example of what I was talking about. Nobody calls out Porsche for being "retro". It's simply a 911, which has always been a slow evolution.

I don't know about anybody else, but my Stang still turns heads; I still catch people doing a 360 around it, peering inside, checking it out.

Not exactly ennui.

 

No...? Behold >>





Hmmmm... I knew I'd seen those swept front lights somewhere before.

 

Sorry if im starting to sound like an *******.....but just because the lights look "kind of" similar and just pretty much the same general shape doesnt mean that it ripped off the entire front end of the celica. Other than that small similarity.....nothing on those two cars look alike, not to mention that the celica you showed isnt even a stock one.

 

I said it rips off the Celica, not that it's a carbon copy. By your own admission, the lights look "similar" and it has "pretty much the same general shape."

Those Celica lights were distinctive when they came out...no one else had that. Now many Asian vehicles are "borrowing" that styling cue, none more closely than the GT-R.

 

ok....but thats still JUST the lights, NOT the "front end." That aside they are really just two totally differently styled cars.

But back to the main topic, i do agree with you guys about how these particular cars "should look." The design of the cars mentioned really are an evolution and as time goes by that signiture design gets more and more refined improving upon an already magnificant car. I only hope that this idea is continued with some great looking designs

 

First, I would love to hear more about the FJ problems - what's going on there?

There is just the intangible something that gets my blood flowing faster when I see a Mustang. Can't describe it, but I can feel it. Don't have that feeling with other cars - the new 'Vette comes close but still scores a distant second. The Camaro and Challenger need to score right out of the box. Ford doesn't need to goof up the next Mustang the way they did the '69, '70, and '71. Interiors when to hell on those cars and GM put some effort into the Camaros and Firebirds.

 

Here's the official NHTSA complaint list:

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr...intVersion=YES

Here's a thread from a Toyota forum with photos:

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forum...body-rips.html

 

All 188 pages of it!