Ford's new top 'car guy' changes up a gear

[doh]

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage...d=yahoofinance

The Verve, Ford Motor (NYSE:F) 's low-slung purple hatchback in the spotlight at last month's Frankfurt auto show, was more than just a prototype for the subcompact expected to succeed the company's popular Fiesta. The car is the first fruit of a production revolution aimed at saving the ailing US carmaker.

The Verve was Ford's first vehicle to premiere under a new global product development system championed by Alan Mulally, the carmaker's chief executive.

A single Ford team based in Cologne is designing the car, which will share the same underlying architecture around the world. But it will be tailored for local tastes: whether it is a four- or five-door version or has an automatic transmission for the US or a diesel engine for Europe.


Overseeing Ford's global product effort is Derrick Kuzak, arguably Mr Mulally's most valuable lieutenant. Mr Mulally describes Ford's Way Forward turnround programme as a team effort, but he makes no secret that Mr Kuzak - who he often describes as "our hero" - is among his favourite colleagues.

Slightly stooped and soft-spoken with a broad-vowelled Michigan accent, the 56-year-old engineer has the air of an avuncular professor rather than a hard-nosed manager.

Yet Mr Kuzak is driving what is arguably the most far-reaching and critical change in the way Ford does business: the design, development and manufacture of its vehicles. He is Ford's new top "car guy", filling the same role that the more flamboyant and worldly Bob Lutz has had at General Motors (NYSE:GM) over the past five years. Mr Kuzak's brief is at the heart of Ford's recovery plan.

Ford, after relying too heavily on sport utility vehicles and trucks, needs to develop a new range of smaller cars and crossover vehicles that are both profitable and popular.

In pushing towards these goals, Mr Kuzak has become Mr Mulally's chief aide in breaking down the regional fiefdoms and splintered organisation that have long kept Ford from leveraging the full potential of its global operation, where Ford's regional units have operated as silos.

Executives were given little incentive to replicate in America the success of popular European models such as the Fiesta and the Focus, Europe's second most popular small family car after the Volkswagen Golf.

Mr Kuzak acknowledges the mistakes of the past. "How could you not be complex if you have engineers in every part of the world designing exhaust systems?" he asks.

Ford's corporate culture has now changed, he insists.

"It isn't you versus them," he says. "It's now a group of colleagues producing the best exhaust system for Ford worldwide."

Mr Kuzak's efforts will be key to Ford's survival. The carmaker needs to get greater profits and sales volumes out of its global operation, if only to support its core US market, where it is still losing share and has been overtaken by Toyota as America's number-two carmaker. "They're trying to catch up," says John Wolkonowicz, an analyst at Global Insight, the consultancy. "They don't have the volumes to support the way they were doing things before."

Ford's product problems date back to the 1990s, when it bet its future on unending growth in demand for SUVs and pick-ups. Like GM and Chrysler, the carmaker capitalised on Americans' growing taste for big - and profitable - vehicles like its Explorer mid-size SUVs.

Together with the even bigger Expedition and Excursion, the Explorer helped to power Ford to record profits in the late 1990s. Explorer sales peaked at 445,000 units in 2000.

Ford also chalked up huge success with the F-Series pick-up, which became America's most popular vehicle and the biggest contributor to Ford's bottom line. The 940,000 F-Series trucks sold in 2004 represented more than one in four Ford vehicles driven off a dealership floor. Even today, as Ford struggles for survival, the F-Series outsells America's top-selling saloon, the Toyota Camry, by two-thirds.

But as the company basked in the success of these large vehicles, it neglected other parts of its bread-and-butter business. At the turn of the last decade, Ford had no small cars - and few cars of any kind - in development.

[doh]

Originally Posted by doh

Ford's product problems date back to the 1990s, when it bet its future on unending growth in demand for SUVs and pick-ups. Like GM and Chrysler, the carmaker capitalised on Americans' growing taste for big - and profitable - vehicles like its Explorer mid-size SUVs.

Together with the even bigger Expedition and Excursion, the Explorer helped to power Ford to record profits in the late 1990s. Explorer sales peaked at 445,000 units in 2000.

Ford also chalked up huge success with the F-Series pick-up, which became America's most popular vehicle and the biggest contributor to Ford's bottom line. The 940,000 F-Series trucks sold in 2004 represented more than one in four Ford vehicles driven off a dealership floor. Even today, as Ford struggles for survival, the F-Series outsells America's top-selling saloon, the Toyota Camry, by two-thirds.

But as the company basked in the success of these large vehicles, it neglected other parts of its bread-and-butter business. At the turn of the last decade, Ford had no small cars - and few cars of any kind - in development.

Bang on description

[igor]

there is more at link BTW

Igor

[AMcA]

I want a Euro-Focus!

Or that Verve - my first reaction was that it was what Aston Martin would do if they built a B car. Gorgeous.