Why Doesn't Ford use the Falcon?

Ford has lots of cars that they should, but don't sell in North America. The fact that the only place they sell the Falcon is Australia. They only sell 30,000 of them every year. It is completely crazy that they will design such a great car and sell it in a very small market when they have both Europe and North America. GM has brought their big rear wheel drive Australian sedan, the Holden Commodore to the U.S. in the form of the Pontiac G8. The new FG Falcon is an even better car than the new VE Commodore (they use two letter names for the RWD Aussie sedan plarforms) and the Holden is better than a BMW 5-series. Ford could use this platform for the next Mustang. It has everything the Mustang needs, RWD, a very modern and lightweight independent front and rear suspension, not the the crappy rigid axle that ruins the current Mustang. In a recent Motor Trend comparison the 425hp Dodge Challenger SRT-8 beat the 500hp Shelby GT500, because it has an outdated rigid axle at the rear. The next Comaro will use the VE Commodore platform and the Challenger has a platform from the old W210 Mercedes-Benz E-class. The FG Ford Falcon is a better car than any of those. Ford could also bring the normal Falcon over here with the 260hp 4.0L straight 6 or the 270hp 3.5L V6, the 360 hp 4.0L turbocharged straight 6, and the 388hp 5.4L V8 engines that are offered in Australia. That would mean that for in the low $30,000 range there would be two cars that can compete and win against the $60,000 BMW 550i. The Falcon is a car Ford can't afford to sell only in Australia. The same is true for the crossover version of the Falcon, the Ford Territory.

Audi R8 vs Aston Martin V8 Vantage

The Audi R8 and Aston Martin V8 Vantage are two cars that I have trouble deciding which is better. The Audi R8 has a mid-engine layout, 420 horsepower, all wheel drive, and costs $109,000 for a manual transmission. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage has a front-engine layout, rear wheel drive, 380 horsepower, and costs $113,000 for the manual coupe. That means the Audi R8 is most likely the better car, in fact the R8 is almost perfect. This is actually a matter of which car would I buy. The R8 seems much better on paper, but the Aston is one of the most beautiful cars in the world and sounds amazing. While the Audi R8 has wonderful handling, is extremely fast, and also sounds great. The Audi is faster in a straight line, in the turns, and because of the AWD is usable in snow and dirt, but that is very bad idea. The Audi also has better practicality, because of its two trunks and again the AWD. The Aston however is still a great handling car and has one of the best chassis around. The problem these cars have is their competition. They have the 355-381hp Porsche 911 Carrera S, 415hp 911 GT3, 480hp (claimed, for real it has over 510hp) Nissan GT-R, 505hp Corvette Z06, 420hp Jaguar XKR, 405hp Maserati GranTurismo, 500hp BMW M6, 420hp BMW M3, Audi's own 420hp RS4, 451hp Mercedes C63 AMG, and 507hp Mercedes CLS63 AMG as not quite direct competition.

What Ford Needs to do for a Midsze Car

The solution to mid size cars for Ford, just like the Focus is from Europe. The car is the Ford Mondeo. The Mondeo, like the Focus is a new car that beats all its competitors from Volkswagen, Mazda, Citroen, Toyota, Honda, Renault, and even the BMW 3-series. The Mondeo is an all new car that was completely redesigned in 2007. Ford doesn't have to do anything, but decide on pricing and engines to bring this great car to North America. They can also bring over a version with their great new 2.2L-4 Turbo diesel with over 170hp for amazing gas mileage. The Mondeo is a car with one of the best platforms in the world and Ford has already developed the car. The Mondeo has great handling and drives better than anything it would compete with here. The old Mondeo drove better than some of the new car's European competition. Ford could sell the Mondeo in the U.S. for somewhere in the low $20,000 range and top out with high spec version that with either the 230hp 2.5L turbo "T5" Volvo engine or the 3.5L V6 with 265hp for around $28,000. This is one of the best cars in the world and Ford can easily replace the old Mazda 6  Ford calls the Fusion. The other thing they could do is use new Mazda 6 platform which is almost as good as the Mondeo. Ford again seems to be planning nothing for a Fusion replacement.

KIA's Build-Quality has Improved

Today I sat in a 2007 KIA Optima. It was a rental car with over 23,000 miles on it, but I would have believed it had only the 634 miles the trip computer was reading. Rental cars generally are treated much worse than the cars people buy, but this car had held up amazingly well. The only wear on the car was a 3 inch long scratch on the right side of the rear bumper. The interior was clean, solid, and well built. Just 3 years ago a KIA Optima would be in very bad shape after 23,000 rental car miles. 

The interior of this $17,000 LX four cylinder base model also seemed to be better than the $20,000 base model Toyota Camry's. The Optima has a more powerful 162hp 2.4L in line 4 than the Camry's 158hp 2.4L. A place the Camry is better is in the fact that it is slightly longer and got a crash test rating from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) of Good for frontal and side impact tests, but Marginal for whiplash protection. The Optima is rated Good for frontal impact and whiplash protection tests, but Acceptable for side impact. The reliability of the KIA may even be better than the Toyota's, because KIA's sister company, Hyundai now make cars more reliable than some Toyota vehicles.

 

There are however, 2 big problems for the Optima. The first is the now very old 185hp 2.7L V6 engine. The second is the Hyundai Sonata, which for 2009 gets a 175hp version of the 2.4L engine (versus the Optima's 162hp) and Hyundai-KIA's new 3.3L V6 that for 2009 models has 249hp (up from 234hp). The Hyundai also uses a different and larger platform, gets the same crash test ratings, has stability control as standard, and costs only $1000 more. A year and a half ago we test drove both 4 cylinder and V6 versions of the Sonata. The four cylinder felt like it needed more power, which it now has. The V6 was very good, it felt powerful, solid, and made the car quite fun. With the 234hp Car and Driver magazine did 0-60mph in 6.6 seconds, faster than a BMW 745i and with 249hp it will be closer to 6.3 seconds. This means the Hyundai is most likely a better car. I have heard that the Optima has a more fun to drive chassis than the Sonata's when it has the same engine. Either car is no longer bad like many people think, they're actually very good cars.

Ford Remedy for the Small Car Segment

Ford is in trouble.  The reason is the way that they tried to sell cars by making everything cost less than the Japanese cars.  But if the best selling car in  America is the Toyota Camry that means that Americans are willing to pay a premium for the perceived quality even if the quality isn't as good as the reputation says. Ford has cars in Europe and Australia that can easily be sold here. The "new" Ford Focus for the U.S. is really just a car brought out 10 years ago with a new grille, lights, and dashboard. The Europeans have a car brought out all new in 2004 that still after 4 years of new competitors including the Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit and Opel Astra is still considered the best in its class. Those cars are both much better than the main competition here, the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, are both much worse than the European cars it competes with. The Corolla is actually a  very bad car. It is built on the same platform as the Scion xB, but the Scion has an independent rear suspension and to be cheap the Corolla and Matrix have a rigid axle. Ford has a chance to bring out a car that will beat every competitor in the small car class. The reason Ford doesn't want to bring it out is it would cause the price to be close to the price of the Fusion, a car that is priced lower than the competition. Why does Ford keep their best cars in smaller markets than the U.S. when they already have these cars?