Autoblog

Towards the end of 2003, Ford unveiled the Freestar. It was a lousy minivan, and its name wasn't much better. From there the f-bombs started pouring in with the Freestyle, Five Hundred, and Fusion. Ford had a Shakespearean stranglehold on alliteration, but outside of the decent success of the Fusion, Ford's effed-up naming convention brought little name recognition to the Blue Oval's car lineup. When Allan Mulally came to town, he scrubbed the Freestyle and Five Hundred names for the much more recognizable and respected Taurus and Taurus X, but unfortunately the basic shape of the family haulers didn't change enough for customers to want them.

Detroit News Columnist Daniel Howes accurately points out that Ford is back to effing up the names of its vehicles. The Flex arrives this summer, and the Fiesta arrives in 2010. The News says Ford marketing head Jim Farley questioned why the Flex name would adorn Ford's full-size crossover, but even the ex-Toyota wunderkind is unable or unwilling to lose the F. We don't understand the fixation Ford has with the sixth letter of the alphabet. The Dearborn automaker's two most successful cars of the past 40 years are the Taurus and Mustang, both of which are decidedly sans F. As a matter of fact, the Camry, Civic, Accord, Impala, and Malibu are all alliteration-free. Sure, if the Flex and Fiesta are great products they'll sell no matter what they're called, but we'd like for Ford to give us an effing break.

[Source: Detroit News]

Alan Mulally took over as Ford's CEO one year ago this month, and some of you may be wondering how he's doing. Business Week magazine says he's doing pretty good, actually, despite a 16% decline in sales last month, a stock price less than the cost of a used CD and the piecemeal selloff of PAG.

BW says Mulally gets an "A" in Profit and Loss for helping Ford earn a $750 million profit in the second quarter, even though the company expects a loss for the this year and next as well.

In Restructuring, Mulally slips to a "B," mostly because BW's author questions the decision to sell Volvo, and speculates that Ford's newish CEO wants badly to shut down the Mercury division. The article says that would be an expensive move that wouldn't be much of a gain for Ford.

As for Product, Mulally earns another "A" for better sharing of platforms and the work Ford is doing with its Australian arm on rear-wheel-drive cars.

Overall, Mulally gets an "A-" average, with his worst grade coming in Personnel, an area where BW says the CEO should at least consider bringing in some high-profile outside talent to round out his management team. We suppose Chrysler would get an "A" in that class.

[Source: Business Week]

Resurrecting the Taurus name isn't the only element from Ford's past that Alan Mulally thinks should make a comeback. Despite having one of their best lineups ever and winning accolades, customers have other makes further up on their list. Potential buyers who actually check out what Ford has to offer often come away impressed, and for this reason Mulally is suggesting a return to the "Have You Driven a Ford Lately?" tagline.

Please, no. Forward momentum, Alan. The return to the Taurus was smart, the name recognition alone is priceless. In that vein, Mulally wants to stop with the recent Ford practice of confusing and confounding consumers by switching model names so frequently. Horray! Building equity in a model name by sticking with it and continually improving the vehicle the badge is stuck to has worked quite well for Honda and Toyota with the Accord and Camry, and it'd be a smart thing for Ford to emulate. Inane 1980s marketing campaigns aside, Mulally is being effective at pushing Ford to operate their business in a smarter manner while building better product. There may be life in the old Tin Lizzie brand yet.

Hit the jump for a taste of Ford's 1984 television campaign.

[Source: Detroit News]

Despite not being official, we've known for some time that Ford CEO Alan Mulally wants to increase the number of platforms shared by its U.S. and European divisions. It's something Ford fanboys have been demanding for some time, and yesterday Mulally officially confirmed that the next-gen Focus and Fusion would be global vehicles, sharing platforms with their counterparts across the pond. This will be in addition to the B-class car that's coming in the form of the new European Fiesta small car that will slot below the Focus in Ford's U.S. lineup.

The amount of overlap between Ford in the U.S. and Ford of Europe was one of the first things that surprised Mulally when he arrived at Ford exactly one year ago. He's quickly set about fixing the redundancy, but we won't likely see the fruits of his labor until 2010 or 2011 when the next Focus is expected to debut for both markets.

Ford execs have said that these cars will wear different styling and be tuned differently, but we've heard from inside the Blue Oval that a conflict between U.S. and Euro designers is growing, with the former group upset that its delicate balance of three-bar grilles will be upset by the Fiesta, and possibly other models, arriving with FoE's "Kinetic Design" theme.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req'd]

The hallmark of the environmental debate is that there are so many important players on so many different sides. Eminent scientists and intellectuals have taken every side of the debate, challenging their eminent colleagues. When it comes to the two most involved and highly charged players, the automakers and politicians, things get even more curious. On the same day that Bush opposed a gas tax to give states more money to repair bridges, Alan Mulally said he supports the idea of a gas tax to encourage customers to buy more fuel efficient vehicles.

Mulally believes Congress' CAFE standards represent failed policy and has hurt automakers. Regulating fuel efficiency has, in his opinion, only lead to consumers buying more cars and driving more. While making sure to stress that he and Ford are all in favor of fuel efficient vehicles and environmental health, he wants some of the onus put back on consumers. He said, "I just think it's so important that we all join in this debate and we really decide what we want to do about energy security and global warming. A piece of that could be a tax."

[Source: Detroit News]

In April, Mulally said Jaguar was part of the Way Forward plan and wasn't going to be sold, but needed to get its act together. News today, however, is that Ford has been trying to sell Jaguar and Land Rover to Fiat ever since February. Ford has also retained Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to help it sell all of the PAG brands, including Volvo.

The talks with Fiat -- held between Ford of Europe head Lewis Booth and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne -- fell through last month. Fiat was interested in Land Rover because of the pace of SUV sales, and the fact that its "five brands are almost nonexistent in the growing global SUV market." Fiat was also interested in Land Rover's US dealership network, thinking Alfa might be able to pair up with them. Jaguar interested Fiat for its RWD platforms and V6 and V8 engines. But Marchionne ended the talks over fears its credit rating would be adversely affected by acquiring Jaguar and Land Rover.

PAG lost $327 million last year, but could be in the black this year, overall, having reported a $402 million pre-tax profit in the first quarter. Jaguar, however, has held things back: it has lost $500 million to $1 billion every year for the last six years, and Jag itself says it will be in the red this year and next. Neither Ford nor Fiat would admit to the talks, but Ford said it "is continuing to assess a number of strategic options for all of its operations. We're not specifying what they are and what we're evaluating."

[Source: Automotive News]

The enhanced version of the Autoblog Podcast #63 has again been rendered out for your visual consumption. In part one of #63, we talk about the next Suzuki Swift coming to the United States. In the podcast's second section we give quite a bit of time to the Alan Mulally - George Bush - hydrogen explosion debate. Finally, we discuss Bub Lutz, and his comment that new EPA regulations could mothball GM's RWD program.

Check it out. Per your suggestions, we cut the podcast into three sections for smaller downloads, and we've also embedded sections two and three of the podcast after the jump. If you have any more suggestions on how to improve the enhanced version of the Podcast, let us know in the comments. We're working on a better distribution system than shoving all three in our current RSS feed of the audio-only version, so soon you'll be able to subscribe just to the enhanced version's RSS feed.

DOWNLOAD Part One to your desktop (Suzuki Swift)
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Ford, Mulally, and Ford. Unlike the Three Musketeers, in this case it's all for two -- Bill Ford, Jr. and Alan Mulally -- and those two for one: Ford Motor Company. An eye-opening article called "Driven to the Brink" in the first issue of Portfolio magazine features a lengthy look at Ford and an interview with Bill Ford, Jr. on what he's been through, where the company is, and where he has to make sure it goes.

The initial numbers are staggering: a $12.7 billion loss in 2006, more than 38,000 jobs gone, a dozen plants shuttered, and of course, the $28 million paid to Mulally. Behind those numbers are others: $23 billion to finance a 2-year restructuring, $17 billion in expenditures over the next two years, nine more plant closures, 70% of all models new or improved by 2009. And behind those numbers is the scion held responsible for an American institution who wanted to create an environmentally responsible company before he was forced to, who had to fight his own company bureaucracy, and who, when turned down by Mulally the first time, said he was "silent and devastated. I had no Plan B." The quote about selling the company that some outlets attribute to Ford wasn't actually spoken by him (that was actually his former chief of staff), but on the subject of the future, he did admit, "We felt the best thing we could do was get our house in order. That doesn't preclude anything down the road."

The article dangles a number of fascinating possibilities. No matter what happens now, though, the company and the family are all in: to get the company that restructuring loan, Ford mortgaged absolutely everything -- even its own logo. As Anne Ford said, "If we lose, we lose everything." You can read the full article here.

[Source: eGM Car Tech]

It's nice to be back in the swing of things. We're once again cranking out weekly podcasts, and #63 is a compact one. We start off salivating over the news that the next generation Suzuki Swift will be headed for US shores. We devolve from discussing an unsubstantiated rumor into wistful praise for the current can't have it Swift, and even make mention of Swifts from nigh on twenty years ago. The dustup over Alan Mulally's work of fiction at the New York Auto Show keynote draws our ire next. This one has it all, lies, grandstanding media with agendas, attacks, grandstanding media with agendas, misinformation, grandstanding media with agendas, disinformation, and finally, grandstanding media with agendas. Speaking of grandstanding, we nearly go as far as calling Lutz's bluff on the announcement that the hotly anticipated RWD cars from GM are on hold 'till regulators get their shizzle together. Whatevs. The entire GM turnaround is on hold? Not bloody likely. The consensus we come to is: Bad Lutz. So, turn on, tune in and peel out for our latest slice of podcast goodness.

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Plain and simple, Alan Mulally is keeping the cat in the house. While admitting that there is a ways to go in the Ford turnaround plan, he asserts that, unlike Aston Martin, Jaguar will remain in the stable, citing the fact that "Jaguar is on a really good plan" as the reason "why we're investing in them."

It's been really hard to get a solid bearing on the future of Ford's leaping feline. Mulally's Ford, which is clearly not afraid to make ruthless cuts, sold Aston just as it climbed into profitability and began unveiling stunning future models. Jaguar, however -- in spite of last year's recall of every 2006-2007 XJ, the marque's 62% drop in sales from 2002-2006, and a 26.8% drop in year-on-year sales up to now -- is envisioned as a high-end niche maker with high-end niche profits. Jaguar remains a critical darling, like a movie showered with awards but seen by only four people: the new XJ, XK and C-XF are awash in trophies, and the brand still wins quality and sales satisfaction surveys.

While the brand new XJ and the production XF can't come soon enough, if they don't come correct, it is hard to believe Mulally won't rid the PAG of its house pet.

[Source: The Car Connection]