And that my friend is poor planning on Ford's part. Ford hedged their future on trucks/SUV's. Instead of building good cars, they poored all their resources into trucks and SUV's. If you notice, Toyota and Honda invested in cars & sedans. They are better prepared to face the future. Ford has noticed this and is scrambling and playing catchup in NA to build smaller cars and sedans.

 

Actually, what I said was: "And isn't Chevy the only mfg offering a pushrod V8 in a sports car?"

Dodge does NOT have any pushrod V8's in a sports car. Their sports car (Viper) is a V10, and their V8 Hemi's aren't offered in a sports car. So, that makes you "technically wrong."

 

My '03 Mach 1 (SN95) and '07 GT have both seen a lot of drag strip duty, neither has ever hopped, both cars have 100% factory suspension, and both ran drag radials at the track. The '07 GT runs mid 12's at 110 mph in the 1/4 mile and doesn't hop. I have driven quite a few 03/04 Cobras and my best friend's 04 Pontiac GTO, and all of them hop when you try to launch hard. My last IRS-equipped car (a '93 Thunderbird 5.0L LX) didn't make enough power to hop, even with 4.10 gears & traction-lok axle, but I suspect that with enough power it would have.

 

My Mustang wheel hopped with the stock suspension and tires. I pulled a 1.95 60' with that setup when N/A. When I put LCA's and UCA in the car, it cured the wheel hop. From the factory, the rubber bushings are too soft. The aftermarket LCA's are also much more rigid.

 

Yeah, but if feels so damned good when you run through a turn and blow the socks off of a car equipped with an IRS.

In any event, the lack of talent combined with only a modest increase in perfomance allows a car like the Mustang exist because its SRA is transparent in performance.

Respective enthusiasts aside, for the most part, the only reason people know an IRS is better is because they are told so in much the same way people are told OHC multivalve engines are better than thier pushrod counterparts (and I'll go as far as saying that the above poster's comment about IRS being marketing buzz not totally out of place).

 

I think there is a quantifiable difference between IRS and SRA, but other aspects of the suspension do come into play. For example, the ride quality of a '77 LTD is going to be VERY soft and soak up all the bumps, and it had SRA. But it also had very soft shocks and springs for a pillowy ride.

Where I notice the SRA is going over bumps and potholes. When you elect to go with stiffer springs and shock rates, IRS become that much more important to compensate for bad roads. My Mustang GT gets jumpy on bad pavement, and the shock effect is transmitted through the chassis and into the cabin...and on up my spine. The effect is definitely jarring. My mid-'80s Japanese small car had a suspension just as tight, but with a full IRS - it didn't transmit the bumps into the cabin nearly as prominently.

Now, it's certainly not a deal breaker, but there are moments when I hit a bad piece of pavement that the car doesn't feel NEARLY as controlled as if I had been in my IRS equipped car.

 

So its there fault that everyone and their brother were buying F150s up like wildfire? They built the vehicles that everyone wanted AT THE TIME!! If they stopped building them, and people still wanted them, they would have been slammed for NOT building what everyone wanted. Its a 2-way street. Manufacturer AND consumer were BOTH to blame!! Ford built them and a whole bunch of people wanted them!

That said, no one anticipated the gas going up like it did. Should they have had small cars on the board, sure, but again, no one saw this coming.

 

This thread just proves my point. You fan boys would buy ANYTHING that ford slapped the horse on. It could be a 5 door hatchback hybrid, with a steam engine, leaf springs, and a wooden dash, and you'd all line up to buy them sight unseen. It's sad really. Buying an inferior product just because its cheaper. I'm a Ford guy, and i CAN NOT WAIT till the Camaro blows the doors off the 2010 Mustang in the next round of comparos so that Ford will finally wake up.

 

Well, it should "blow the doors off" the 2010. since the new motor isn't out yet. Lets see when the 5.0 comes back in 2011! Then the Camaro is gonna have a problem. Just remember, the last gen Camaro out-performed the Mustang, but they couldn't sell them to save their lives (hence the car was stopped). The Mustang, while being outperformed by the Camaro, outsold the GM cars, like 5-1 or some crazy number like that

 

Exactly. Raw performance numbers don't really mean much in the real world of daily drivers. Driveability is the real bottom line (along with pricing), and despite the Mustang getting trounced on paper, it outsold the F-bodies because it was a much more drivable car.

Whether that holds true in the next round or not remains to be seen. Ford has a great start with the S197 platform, but by all accounts the Camaro/G8 platform is also quite good. Pricing/marketing may be the determining factor, and the Mustang should retain the bang-for-buck crown...

 

But the casual buyer isn't going to change his mind because IRS is added. However more enthusiast buyers might get on board. Whatever, if Ford can sell units to cheap folks who don't mind driving an inferior car, thats fine. That just isn't a group I'm interested in being in.

 

Consumers also wanted good cars too, but Ford didn’t produce one. Look at the sales of the Civic, Corolla, Accord, Camry, etc. Back in the 80’s, Ford was VERY strong in the car market. In the 90’s, Ford started to build ****ty cars and the American consumer shifted to foreign competitors. Ford literally invested everything in SUVs/Trucks. Well with that strategy, they gambled and forgot the golden rule of “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Ford has no one to blame, but themselves.

No one saw this coming? Come on that’s just being oblivious. This has been coming for years. It’s the typical American way to only react when the **** hits the fan. The same goes for the crisis we are in right now financially. We saw it coming, but didn’t do a thing.

 

My 60+ year old father can tell the difference in SRA vs IRS in the rear world. In the rear world, you DO notice the rear end being more controlled and planted. That's easily felt by the driver.

You SRA guys are a funny bunch. Why are people so against Ford building a truely modern car that competes globally? I think it would be awesome for a GT500 to be compared to a M3 or Corvette. That's never going to happen with the current SRA rear.

 

Ford put everything in "one basket" as trucks and SUVs were what was selling so well. Your being naive! Ford made the vehicles that people wanted. SUVs were going through the roof, and everyone wanted one. Hell, even Porsche came out with one, and it sold VERY well! If they stopped building them, during the SUV/Pickup hayday, customers would have gone elsewhere to get them, and thats the honest truth. They offered what people wanted AT THE TIME!!

Now about the gas? You said "we saw it coming". If we did, we didn't do anything to get ready for it. Its not the automakers problems that people bought the vehicles that got crummy gas mileage. The mileage was on the labels, but they bought them anyway, not even thinking gas was going to do what it did. They bought them and now with gas going up the way it did, people want out of them. Unless you had a crystal ball, no one saw gas going up over $2 within a few day's span, cause I sure didn't. And don't even get me started on the "financial" aspect. Bankers who make $10s of millions get the bailouts, while you and me are left holding the stick. The CEOs were the ones to blame!! BS, I say!

 

Cars were selling well too at the time. Car sales were roughly 40% overall. I am not being naïve, I am stating the facts. Any business that invests all of their resources in one area, will eventually need to diversify. Ford took a huge risk in betting on trucks/suvs and LOST!! This is business 101 here and Ford forgot that. The fact of the matter is that Honda and Toyota (for example), diversified their lineup and it’s going to help them weather the troubles we are seeing right now.

Gas uses the simple supply and demand theory. India and China are increasing demand, what does that do supply? This isn’t rocket science here. We’ve had 30+ years to fix our energy needs and we did nothing about it.

 

we are not against it we are against the pretenciousness that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. if it were 5.0 or IRS i would chose 5.0 everytime

 

Meaning 60% of the market was trucks and SUVs.

 

Leaf springs have their place. On older cars I'd rather have Ford's leaf springs than GMs coils, same with their trucks.
Ford doesn't need IRS to build a competitive vehicle. Ford already build vehicles with IRS.
Watch the discussions when Ford puts only IRS in a Mustang.

Playing Devils advocate is weak. Take a stand and believe in it.

 

Great post.

Buyers are fickle. Watch what happens to V8 and truck sales when gas prices go down, or people become normalised to higher prices.
People will gravitate to what they really want.

 

Then what about all those Camrys and Accords sold during the same time frame? Your quote, is partly true . . . they made the Trucks/SUVs people wanted, not the cars.

You are right that FMC put everything in "one basket." Ford was greedy because they made lots of money from their Trucks/SUVs sales. Can't fault them for trying to make a buck . . . BUT they neglected the car market that a few years prior they owned! Now maybe if 'Uncle Jack' hadn't bought everything in sight, FMC might of had more cash to funnel towards maintaining their hold in the car segments. Unfortunately, they did not and we all know what happened next . . .


As an example, late 80's . .