Last night over edibles I asked Ford CEO Alan Mulally how he wants the American public to think of Ford. His answer was a batch of quick hits. "Great car. It's cool. Great to drive," he said before pausing for a second. Then he continued "Affordable. Fuel-efficient. Ford is back. We've got the products, we just have to get the word out."
Is he right? What do you think? -- Scott Oldham, Inside Line Editor in Chief
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Ford is losing their reputation with HD diesel pickups. The body and chassis of the F-Series Super Duty line is arguably the best; the diesel engine and transmission have fallen to the bottom of the list. It's a common opinion that Dodge has the best engine (Cummins), and GM has the best transmission (Allison). If Ford is indeed working on an in-house engine to replace the current International 6.4, it's got to be an out-of-the-building home run for people to forget all the missteps with the 6.0 and 6.4 engines... and it will have to have world-class transmissions to go with it.
If he were talking about Ford of Europe, then he'd have it about right.
"Great car. It's cool. Great to drive, Affordable. Fuel-efficient"
What boring answers. The above statement could have come from almost any car company out there. I like where Ford is going, but those cookie-cutter answers certainly caught my eye.
no one cares about the answers of the CEO. How many people who will consider a Ford even know about Mullaly? The products will determine if people consider Fords and the new product is very nice. Best ever from Ford. It is nice to see Ford finally stepping up and offering true competition for the imports across the board. All they have to do now is spice up the Escape a little. Ford is no longer designing vehicles to compete with current or past generation competitors. They are looking ahead.
Mullaly was able to turn around Boeing Commercial Airplanes up here in Seattle, and in the brief two or so years that he's been at Ford, he's been doing the exact same thing.
Ford Manager: "How are you going to tackle something as complex and unfamiliar as the auto business when we are in such tough financial shape?"
Mullaly: "An automobile has about 10,000 moving parts, right? An airplane has two million, and it has to stay up in the air."
So I said to my wife the other day, “if our next car ends up being a sedan, what would you think about the Ford Fusion?’ Her reply, “there is no way I’m going to drive a Ford.”
Ford may be making intelligent product decisions, but they have a hell of an image to overcome. The good news: they're getting the products and they’re garnering the interest of people who know cars.
My wife, too, will not consider a Ford Fusion. She wants Japanese, ONLY! The irony, is, her little '97 corolla is nothing special. In fact, it has a lot of turd qualities. However, before that, she owned a Cavalier, so the Corolla is golden to her.
I hope so. Reversing consumer opinion doesn't happen over night but it does start with the product(s) and IMO they are on the right track. 1487 makes good points with where their focus is - looking ahead. I also think that GM is further along and ahead of Ford - both are on the right track though....a welcome development.