Jay Nemeth-Johannes worries about the restructuring at Ford:
They have decided to eliminate the European car operation and
instead create the Passenger
Car Operation. This means that there will be a single design for
future chassis development.
I would hesitate to question Newsweek, but that is not what was announced
here last week. According to the Financial Times, there are to be five new
car divisions worldwide:
1. Proper cars with rear wheel drive
2. Proper cars with front wheel drive
3. People carriers
4. Commercial vehicles
These are all to be based in the US.
Then there is:
5. Little bitty cars they make in Europe.
This is actually not as bad as it seems for Ford in Europe, as they will
continue to look after the B class (Fiesta), C class (Escort) and C/D class
(Sierra/Mondeo) cars as before, so your Sierra derivative is safe for a bit.
Europe has lost the Granada/Scorpio, which was a good car, but not a great one.
Another thing, Ford is now being looked after by an Englishman as Chairman,
so maybe Ford US cars will be made more European.
I don't know how this will affect Jaguar. Ford paid $0.6 billion for the assets
and $2.0 billion for the brand name of Jaguar. I can't believe they will devalue
it to another Ghia or Lincoln, can they?
Paul "always look on the bright side" Garside
|