Now that Ford has hocked everything but Mark Fields' mullet, el Presidente de las Americas says they could step up cost cutting efforts to meet their financial goals in '08 and '09. The Wall Street Journal quotes the Blue Oval's Master of the Obvious as he explained, "there's more risk than there is opportunity going forward" and "if we see weakness on the revenue side, we have to take up the slack on the cost side." Never one to waste a convenient excuse, Fields echoed GM's mantra that their decline in monthly sales was due to cutbacks in fleet sales. Fields' comments came at the launch of the "all new" Focus which features a redesigned exterior and interior on top of the same old eight-year-old chassis. It seems that some of their cost-cutting efforts are aimed at the wrong target…
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I’d love to have heard the internal discussions justifying a rewarmed Focus as ugly as this instead of a new platform…did they think it would sell because they offer it with Sync?
How does Ford let Mazda sell a much better Focus then they do?
I would love to purchase an American car but sadly American cars come up short in every category that matters to me. I went to look at the 2007 Cadillac STS and I was shocked at how cheap the interior bits are. Shared platform is nice IF you have a platform worth sharing. If you want to be taken serious on being world class then BE world class. So far the best car I have ever owned was a 2005 Audi A8L, the entire and fit and finish are awesome, sadly electronic gremlins and poor dealer network ended our romance. Please America built something that people who love to drive want to buy.
Translation: time to beat the (last remaining) crap out of the suppliers!
blautens: Fields and Mullaly aren’t responsible for the “new” Focus.
The decision to put lipstick on the old girl was made before they were put in charge.
It is my understanding, however, that they were instrumental in making sure that Ford of North America is on track to get the next-generation European Focus, which is due in 2010 or 2011.
Further translation: Engineers, buh bye.
geeber: but they could have made sure it wasn’t beaten with the ugly stick. I mean, look at that grille. Ford’s cars, though not frequently beautiful, are usually at least pleasing to the eye in the same banal way as the outgoing Accord. Who let this one slip through? They managed to fuse “bland’ with “ugly”, and that’s not the way they should go…
Yuck!!! The 2008 Ford Focus looks like the unholy child of BMW 5-series and a New Subaru Impreza, with a Sebring for godmother.
Almost as ugly as Field’s mullet, and just as useless. Why don’t they bring the European Focus, which continues to garner praise as the best car in its class, above the VW Golf, Opel Astra, and even Mazda3 platform mate?
Check out the look of the possible 2008 European Focus Coupe: http://www.autounleashed.com/2008-ford-focus-coupe
(Hope linking to another blog is compliant with the rules of TTAC. If not, my apologies)
Wow it’s still the ancient old Focus and boring and kind of ugly. What was so hard with making the Euro focus US compliant and just selling that. I don’t know why but this car reminds me of a mid 80’s Escort.
The reason it looks like a Subaru is because Subaru seems to be getting design ideas from Ford now and Chrysler on it’s SUV’s.
And again, criticism without driving the thing. The exterior looks of the new Focus leave something to be desired. But, the interior doesn’t look bad. The feature set is good. The “eight-year-old” platform is still newer, technically speaking, than many Toyota platforms that are simply re-engineered every 5 or so years.
The Focus deserves criticism for those horrible vents and dropping the hatches, but the platform is not the exact same as the one that came over in 2000 any more than the Camry rides on a platform directly descended from 1992. The engine, suspension and body (structure, not looks) appear to have been changed in the right way.
What we want from the C1 isn’t actually the C1 platform. The C170 can be modified to have the same feel. The C1, other than being flexible to allow more variants to come from the platform, doesn’t have a lot over this revised C170. What our C170 lacks is the looks and overall refinement of the Euro Focus – a touch of style. And that blame has nothing to do with the C170 but the designers who thought that vents from a Land Rover would look good on the Focus and the consumers of the U.S. who will not pay $20k for a compact Ford vehicle.
RobertSD: The “eight-year-old” platform is still newer, technically speaking, than many Toyota platforms that are simply re-engineered every 5 or so years. It's still an eight-year-old platform, no matter who builds it. From Edmunds Inside Line: "Underneath this new body is a slightly retuned version of the existing Focus platform, the same basic goods as was introduced eight years ago." [Emphasis added] Re-engineering a platform "every 5 or so years" sure beats recycling a "slightly retuned" eight-year-old platform.
Dude’s got to chop that mullet… Seriously, he looks like Scott Baio.
OK – so they did a facelift. How did it end up costing more than just using the European one ?
How old is the current Corolla?
(I’m afraid we’re as likely to see Fields change his hair as Trump.)