Quote:
Originally posted by stewacide@Mar 4 2004, 04:25 AM
The 500 and Freestyle are meant to be bland. They essentially take over from the current Taurus but are a new pardigrim in the industry, being much larger, taller, and at the same time more effecient than anything we've seen before. Basically it's taking where the midsize segment has been slowly headed in the last few years (bigger, blander, more luxurious) and taking it to its logical end. For the price it's very hard to imagine how a top-trim Camrey or Accord could compete with the larger, more capable, more refined 500 for a similar price - especially considering how manageable the outside dimensions are and how effeceint it will be with a CVT or 6-speed auto.
The Futura will do almost the complete opposit. It's style (from people inside the development loop) is said to be as progressive as the original Taurus was in its day. The mechanicals, similarily, push the envelope in all respects: AWD, industry-leading 4-cylinders, 6-cylinders (3.0 and 3.5), the possibility of diesel power if that's where the market heads, and a new Ford developed hybrid powertrain (that's said to be power rather than economy biased). The fact that it's developed on the Mazda6 platform would also indicate that it will be a very sporting ride, with a 300hp version in the works and manual transmissions offered over the whole range.
One very important aspect of the Futura (and 500 to a lesser extent) that's often overlooked is the fact that it will be AWD, which means that nobody for the forseeable future will be able to touch Ford in terms of the horsepower race (any more horsepower and the FWD Maxima/Altima/Accord/etc. will be undriveable).
...It's incredible how short-sighted the market can be, as if a company is only worth it's latest quarters sales numbers. It's still a gamble at this point but if I had any money I'd consider buying Ford stock now while everyone seems to be negative on it.
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i can't help but wondering how hard it'll be for ford to grab back any customers they loose up until these new models are out. for every die-hard, brand-happy customer there's a fickle one, and if they jump from a current ford to something else, i wonder if the new fords will be enough to pull them back. then again if they're fickle, they might very well be impressed with what ford is releasing in the future and jump back.
i find it odd that cavalier and sunfire and grand am sales are up (yes, two months of a year is only am tiny snapshot), even though these models are on their way out. same with the impala... it's far from fresh but still moving. some might question the use of incentives to keep market share, but GM is building better cars these days, and if they can get a taurus owner into an impala and impress them, they might very well keep them in the GM fold.
just guessing at all this... i think it's interesting stuff! i guess the difference with ford is that most of their car lineup is stale right now, whereas most companies try to stagger new introductions. ford's year of the car hasn't started just yet!