Ford's upscale push in Europe draws skeptics

[frankxbe]

Automotive News Europe
May 26, 2014 12:58 CET
COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) -- Ford Motor Co. intends to compete for customers with premium carmakers as it offers high-end versions of its mass-market models in a bid to end years of losses in Europe.

At the company's European headquarters, executives are confident they can convince drivers to pay more for existing models upgraded with leather interiors, chrome moldings and top-notch customer service packaged under a new label, Vignale. But with most of its rivals chasing the same affluent buyers, the tactic is fraught with risk and there may be few winners.
read more, http://europe.autonews.com/article/...ptics?cciid=email-ane-daily&r=5880C6237467I6Y

Comments I posted there ,

Sounds familiar kind of like their strategy of selling otherwise tarted up Fords as Lincolns here in USA . ofc Ford/Lincoln ( or is it Ford and The Lincoln Motor co. now ?) ..

To be fair they are not alone in this business model by any means
there is the current Chevy Impala ,Buick LaCrosse and the Cadillac XTS platform sharing now but GM seems to do a better job of product differentiation these days than Ford so far with the 4-door sedan Cadillac ATS, Cadillac CTS (Third gen.) and Chevrolet Camaro (Sixth gen.) sharing variants of the the Alpha platform .
Also some platform sharing with GMC ,Cadillac ,Chev Truck,SUV and CUV platforms


I remember the Carteir Lincolns ,the build quality was not very good on those or any Lincolns then.

Didn't Aston Martin have a lagonda Vignale model ?

At least the Cadillac Allante's were actually Pininfarina built bodys!

OTOH the J body Cadillac Cimmaron was a Chevy Cavialer with tuck and roll
kinda like the Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch/Lincoln Versailles .
cant forget the Plymouth Volare/Dodge Diplomat /Chrysler New Yorker
Oh ........... and the K car New Yorkers ....... no original ideas here just more of Detroit , Dearborn and Highland Park / Auburn Hills old ways .

Be that as it may I wish Ford good luck on this the European and US auto makers
are doing the same thing in many instances as in the past out of economic necessity
and more recently the US automakers are making prudent use of existing global resources .

 

[Andyman]

Haven't there been trim and model upgrades for like forever. Remember the designer versions of years gone by. Eddie Bauer Explorers immediately comes to mind.

Folks these days are snobs about a lot of things. Hell, look at coffee. Seems to me Ford is giving folks what they want and that's just basic good business.

 

[hjames]

How about the Vanden Plas treatments for Jaguar?

How about the De Tomosa tweak on the Chrysler TC ...

There were Lincoln design editions from Cartier, Emilio Pucci, Givenchy and Bill Blass (I loved the Bill Blass color scheme) ... I think the 76 versions were best but they did it 3 years.

But Ford fans probably prefer the Carrol Shelby tweaks on the (older) Mustangs ... a different kind of bespoke car!

 

[frankxbe]

I hated those big 73-79 Connies and 68 -79 Marks . Ofc I was an L/M dealership mechanic then I knew just how crappy the build quality and desighn was. Most of us liked the 60's L/M's though . I drove late 60's to late 70's GM's then they were lot's better. Most of the mid to late 70's -80's cars and beyond were
with but a few exceptions **** boxes some worse than others . Some of the rice burners weren't bad tough .They are all making some good stuff lately now though .



OTOH the 61-69 Connie's were the real deal the 70-72 wasn't bad hard to work on especially the early 462 engines in the older ones . Nice cars though .

The Mark 7 (last decent lincoln mark IMO ) was pretty good as well didn't much like the 8 or anything since except the 1998 - 2011 Panther Platform Town cars were mostly OK for an extra large sedan so were the same years Crown VIC's and big Mercury's .

Although The last big car I had was a Monte Carlo after that it was a Z28 ,various company cars, German and Japanese cars and more recently 4 Domestic Trucks .

 

[12ax7]

Ah yes, The Chrysler TC by Maserati.

 

[Brian]

Ah yes, The Chrysler TC by Maserati.

Looks like a decent possible restoration project for someone.

 

[Sandy G]

Bring out a latter-day version of the GREAT suicide-door convertible sedan of the Sixties, & maybe a V-12 version of the "Modular" V-8 Continental...The Chicoms APPARENTLY absolutely LOVE "Bling"- Mercedes, BMW, Rolls, Bentley, Cadillac have been doing GANGBUSTER business over there for YEARS-Why ISN'T Lincoln ?!?

 

[frankxbe]

Bring out a latter-day version of the GREAT suicide-door convertible sedan of the Sixties, & maybe a V-12 version of the "Modular" V-8 Continental...The Chicoms APPARENTLY absolutely LOVE "Bling"- Mercedes, BMW, Rolls, Bentley, Cadillac have been doing GANGBUSTER business over there for YEARS-Why ISN'T Lincoln ?!?

+1 although with the air quality being what it is over there and worse than LA basin in 1961 in places I don't think a convertible would be a big seller over there ,perhaps a 4 DR hardtop though .

 

[zebra03]

Bring out a latter-day version of the GREAT suicide-door convertible sedan of the Sixties, & maybe a V-12 version of the "Modular" V-8 Continental...The Chicoms APPARENTLY absolutely LOVE "Bling"- Mercedes, BMW, Rolls, Bentley, Cadillac have been doing GANGBUSTER business over there for YEARS-Why ISN'T Lincoln ?!?

The current Lincoln line is truly sad . I don't think they are even trying . I see a new Mark with the Mustang underpinnings as a good start .

 

[Brian]

The current Lincoln line is truly sad . I don't think they are even trying . I see a new Mark with the Mustang underpinnings as a good start .

I have pretty much preferred the Lincolns over Caddy from the late '50s onwards until the demise of the last generation Town Car. I have not personally tried the newest Lincolns and Caddys but starting with the CTS I was less biased except for the Town Car still would have been my choice if I were to buy either marque. I now tend to favor the Caddy just because of the looks.

My driver has driven the new Lincolns and went out and found a nearly nib Town Car and has it warehoused for when his current one with more than 750,000K on it bites the dust. His wife has an older Town Car and he had to replace the engine in it at 650,000k and feels he got short changed. He does not feel the new ones will last as long with as little maintenance and where on his h does much of the repair work he thinks with the new ones diy repairs will be much more difficult and possibly all but impossible.

I too love the '62-'67 suicide door Lincolns; I think one of the truly classic timeless visual designs. I'd love the company to take it, do away with the rust problems and flex of these early unibody cars and update the systems from the last Town Car but not make the car look like something out of the space shuttle from the Enterprise.

 

[frankxbe]

Brian wrote ,
I too love the '62-'67 suicide door Lincolns; I think one of the truly classic timeless visual designs. I'd love the company to take it, do away with the rust problems and flex of these early unibody cars and update the systems from the last Town Car but not make the car look like something out of the space shuttle from the Enterprise.
__________________

Trust me those 61- 67 Lincoln unit bodys did not flex much like other unit bodys they were built like bank vaults . I know I worked on them .
ofc modern manufacturing techniques , suspension and drive trains ,tires and wheels ,HS steel ,R&P steering and rust protection would definitely improve them .

 

[Sandy G]

Trust me those 61- 67 Lincoln unit bodys did not flex much like other unit bodys they were built like bank vaults . I know I worked on them .
ofc modern manufacturing techniques , suspension and drive trains ,tires and wheels ,HS steel ,R&P steering and rust protection would definitely improve them .

Exactly. My '67 Pervertable, the suspension components on it are as beefy, if not more so, than what you'd find on a tonne Super Duty pickemup...They were extremely overbuilt, they didn't have computers back then to tell 'em how CHEAPLY they could build something. Lincoln had more experience than almost anyone in the industry w/unibody cars, dating back to the Zephyrs of the Thirties..

 

[Brian]

Exactly. My '67 Pervertable, the suspension components on it are as beefy, if not more so, than what you'd find on a tonne Super Duty pickemup...They were extremely overbuilt, they didn't have computers back then to tell 'em how CHEAPLY they could build something. Lincoln had more experience than almost anyone in the industry w/unibody cars, dating back to the Zephyrs of the Thirties..

Except for Nash and MG/Austin, maybe. Ford advertised the Lincoln as its first unibody based car so wonder if the Zephyr was not quite a unibody but maybe a hybrid as some car companies seemed to be doing. Morris introduced it in the Mini and not long after other Britain such as Rover were making them before the Lincoln intro. Nash, of course, had it down with the introduction of its bathtubs bodies relatively long before others.

Not sure but I seem to recall reading the Chrysler Airflow also was a unibody.

 

[Sandy G]

IIRC, the Airflow was a sort of "Semi-unibody", as were the Lincoln convertible sedans of the Thirties. I've heard it said that you could park a Sixties Lincoln convertible on uneven ground, & not be able to open the doors, but I've never experienced THAT, myself. It IS interesting, however, that a 4-door hardtop of the "Suicide-Door" series was NEVER offered, save for 4 examples made EARLY in the '61 model year... They were actually an outgrowth of the 1961 Thunderbird programme. They WERE going to bring out a "Facelifted" version of the immense 1958-'60 bulldozer, & it was even UGLIER than that car, if you can imagine...

 

[Brian]

Actually, it was the convertible that had the problem. When parked on other than level flat ground the top opening and closing relay system would be flexed by the top and go out of sync. I learned the hard way one night when me and my sweetheart were at the beach and I decided to close the top. Ended up driving home, some 15 miles at 20 miles per hour with the top half up.

My dad had this thing for these Lincolns and I think he ended up with each year both the 4-door and 4-door convertible versions. As a high school kid, it was kinda fun but, I actually preferred or '56 Olds turquoise and white convertible with the Rocket 98 engine. Way cooler. The Lincolns were great for the weekend dates, though.

 

[Sandy G]

Yeah, I've never heard of that cropping up on the "later" versions of the convertible. Mine's a '67, last of the breed. They have 3 hydraulic pumps, 14 little electric motors & 25 relays to make everything work NO PLCs or computers back in antebellum '67.. The guy who got mine going 30 odd years ago said they WOULD supposedly erect/retract their tops up to approx. 25 MPH moving, but that he would NOT recommend doing that under ANY circumstances..The Lincoln & the T-Bird shared a few parts from 1958-67, when the T-Bird started to be built off the Galaxy chassis/bodyshell, the Lincoln went from 1967-69 sharing almost NOTHING w/their lesser Ford/Mercury cousins... They DID share the 460 from late '68 on, & my '67 has the 462, my '69 has the 460, the 462 is an almost INFINITELY smoother, more powerful motor.. The 1969 Ford & Mercury big cars were reskinned, consequently, the Grand Marquis De Sade was fractionally longer than the Lincoln.. In 1970, the Lincoln went w/the FoMoCo corporate "Big Car" chassis/bodyshell, & regained its length supremacy, by less than an inch... The Cads of that era were the longest of the "Gollywhoppers", my '73 Fleetwood Brougham is something like 233" from one end to the other... The Lincolns never got more than 227" in length.. But the only time you really notice the lengths of these masturbadons is when you're unlucky enuff to be washing one by hand..(Grin)

 

[Brian]

The '58 T-Bird had a 430 and as an option the "Police" engine, the 460. Mine had the optional engine and could leave a 430 engined 'bird in the dust. Of course neither could take a corner and smoking tires was totally impossible unless the road had a slight oil or water slick. Before running across these optioned T'birds I had thought these engines were only offered in the Lincolns of the '60s.

The convertible was a '62. I learned the lesson and never tried it on any of the other year versions. The Lincoln service mechanic had a service bulletin with the caution to be given to owners who experienced the "unique feature".

 

[Sandy G]

The WORST feature, I think of the early Sixties T-Birds & Lincolns were their LOUSY brakes, at least by today's standards... They were capable of rather high speed, & the primitive drum brakes of the day were good for maybe one & a half "Panic Stops" from hiway speeds.. In 1965, Lincoln got front discs, which helped a LOT, but frequent stops from hiway velocities was sort of an article of faith... Around town, you'd never really notice the brakes, though.

 

[soundboy]

The current Lincoln line is truly sad.

that's an understatement

 

[Brian]

The WORST feature, I think of the early Sixties T-Birds & Lincolns were their LOUSY brakes, at least by today's standards... They were capable of rather high speed, & the primitive drum brakes of the day were good for maybe one & a half "Panic Stops" from hiway speeds.. In 1965, Lincoln got front discs, which helped a LOT, but frequent stops from hiway velocities was sort of an article of faith... Around town, you'd never really notice the brakes, though.

With maybe only a couple of exceptions all cars had this issue. At that time we just installed metal impregnated shoes that while requiring new drums sooner had far less fade and replace those silly rubber brake hoses with flexible high strength steel sheathed high pressure nonexpanding hoses. Add racing rated master and brake cylinders and you were good to good. The result was as good as those early discount brake systems. Cost was about double the oem component prices.