Who hear has the ear of Ford HQ?

[P6LTD351]

Originally Posted by DanielXR8

Just think of the profits when they drop sales to 1000 per month!

Ford is a mass market car company. They would happily make 3000 Falcons and discount every last one of them from retail prices (they already are anyway), but they are finding it hard to find those things called customers.

Nothing to do with some brillaint business plan as you constantly allude to, but rather the reality of the market Falcon and the brand find themselves in.

Ford Australia manufacturing is not a boutique business by choice.

Bingo. It's not rocket science.

[stang65]

Not if their not making money they wouldn`t.

[Falc'man]

Originally Posted by stang65

Not if their not making money they wouldn`t.

No, but it's the No1 spot that is most important. Never mind if they lose money, govco's got their back.

[P6LTD351]

Originally Posted by Falc'man

No, but it's the No1 spot that is most important. Never mind if they lose money, govco's got their back.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not.....but as funny as it is, what you say is correct!

What I am saying is that the Falcon, no matter how much profit they make, cannot sustain in the long term at only 1500 sales. If it stays at 1500, you can bet it will go to 1400, 1300, 1200, 1100, 1000 and so on.

The Falcon has dropped out of the top 10 for the FIRST time EVER. But hey, they're making a profit! pfft - that profit won't be there if they stop selling.

[Falc'man]

Originally Posted by eb2monty

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not.....but as funny as it is, what you say is correct!

What I am saying is that the Falcon, no matter how much profit they make, cannot sustain in the long term at only 1500 sales. If it stays at 1500, you can bet it will go to 1400, 1300, 1200, 1100, 1000 and so on.

The Falcon has dropped out of the top 10 for the FIRST time EVER. But hey, they're making a profit! pfft - that profit won't be there if they stop selling.

WTF? Me? Sarcasmic?

[Bossxr8]

No point advertising now, production finishes this week and won't restart until Jan 12, and December and January are dead months for sales, and everyone is focused on Christmas.

Better off waiting until mid January to start advertising, Ecoboost could be done a little later as it won't be released until Feb.

If they haven't started to advertise by February then its time to start warming up the lynch mob.

[jpd80]

National Ad campaign, probably cost around $10 million..
let's say split across a max of 3,300 vehicles for the month
instead of a flat 1,500.

Now, $10 million amortized across 3,300 cars equals $3,000 a piece but by
not spending $10 million and only make 1,500 and you've probably "made" more.

It's a strange concept to get your head around but Mulally has taught Ford
the virtue of right sizing production to true market capacity and that not
every cost is fixed like so many GM-o-philes would have us think,
you can save a bunch by not having millions in car stockpiles.

[I6DOHC]

No doubt they have to at least throwing a few advertisements for the updated FGII out there soon. I wonder if they are holding off until the Ecoboost is available, so that way they are able to fire all their guns at once?

Anyway, hopefully they can string something together like they did with the BA (the one with the XR6T hooking around the corners), as in my opinion that is perhaps one of the best adds Ford Oz ever put out. Certainly made me sit up and take notice and I can still remember it now, nearly a decade on.

Some of the ford ute adds they used to put out were pretty good as well, but I haven't seen one of them for ages either. If they have I can't remember them.....

[imugli]

FoA engineers are responsible for 1 world car, one sub-compact that won COTY in India last year, they're working on a small car specifically for China ATM and they have the EcoSport that they've contributed to as well.

Mondeo is second highest selling medium car in the country, Ranger looks set to be big seller next year, new focus has just been released and should further boost sales.

Now let's look at Holden.

They are currently making the Cruze, which is design and engineered overseas (excluding the hatch).

Commodore export program is all but gone (and PPV isn't selling). Ute and wagon, which were only given green light on basis of exports, are one market products and the only reason Holden wasn't sold off 2 years ago was that Ruddy chipped in a $200m line of credit (though admitedly this was never drawn on).

In the next 12 months, Ranger will probably outsell Falcon (so may the Territory for that matter). I dare say both of these will come with higher margins per unit sold.

Holden on the other hand, will sell more Cruze than Commodore. I imagine Cruze makes LESS margin per unit.

I know which HQ I'd prefer to be walking the halls of.

Ford ISN'T the Falcon Car Company any more and yes, they HAVE chosen to be more niche than they ever have been, all over the world. The fact is that before they made that choice, they were making 100,00 cars, selling 30,000 of them and having to give the rest away at a loss.

That doesn't happen now. Check GM. Im sure they can't say the same thing,

Ford now more closely resemble VW than they do GM or Toyota and this is a good thing.