Ford Falcon Wagon Dead

[NB4C]

From a design perspective, how hard is it to make a wagon variant of a sedan ?

No very. If you look at a Camry wagon side on, you can see the outline of the sedan.

It's just a matter of fitting an extra section to the back of the car and beefing up the rear suspension to take more payload. Rear crash safety shouldn't be an issue if the FG got a 5 star rating.

[bunna]

If its so easy maybe you should do it for Ford, and they can pay you with all the money they have to spend on that program (4/5ths of zero). Concept, sheetmetal, crash, interior trim, production feasibility, tooling, at least 12 months of prototype phases, durability, a dozen other major milestones I've forgotten, and at the end of all that the media will still jump on them with the "all your cars are too big and we want you to fall over next" crap.

Honestly, whilst a sportswagon style affair could have sold well (as we're seeing with the Expensive Daewoo atm) when the Orion was being designed there was no point in spending money on the wombat. And so now Ford has a vehicle that it hasn't spent any real money on in over 5 years and its still selling at reasonable volumes to speciality markets like telstra who absolutely lap these things up. Methinks that's a smart business decision. Despite how many sportswagons Expensive Daewoo is selling, they still will not have broken even on that program yet. The only reason the Ford wagon is going is Euro IV compatibility.

With the number of territories ford is selling, and the waiting list for them, losing wagon volume is largely irrelevant, especially with the updates next year.

Edited 27/03/10 11:02 PM by Dagabond
quote removed....

[xr6turbs]

I have an AU wagon also, Its a great car! seriously guys....

we used to own a Dairy (convenience store) and the amount of coke boxes we could fit into the back amazing... my dad never liked vans so yeah that was our car!

And it had power unlike those jappa wagons

[Adam]

The Expensive Daewoo Sportwagon isn't a real station wagon. It's much smaller.

I do think it's the best looking car Expensive Daewoo make though.

Are they really surprised the Mondeo wagon hasn't done well against the Holden? Seems obvious to me.

[Dillz]

If its so easy maybe you should do it for Ford, and they can pay you with all the money they have to spend on that program (4/5ths of zero). Concept, sheetmetal, crash, interior trim, production feasibility, tooling, at least 12 months of prototype phases, durability, a dozen other major milestones I've forgotten, and at the end of all that the media will still jump on them with the "all your cars are too big and we want you to fall over next" crap.

Honestly, whilst a sportswagon style affair could have sold well (as we're seeing with the Expensive Daewoo atm) when the Orion was being designed there was no point in spending money on the wombat. And so now Ford has a vehicle that it hasn't spent any real money on in over 5 years and its still selling at reasonable volumes to speciality markets like telstra who absolutely lap these things up. Methinks that's a smart business decision. Despite how many sportswagons Expensive Daewoo is selling, they still will not have broken even on that program yet. The only reason the Ford wagon is going is Euro IV compatibility.

With the number of territories ford is selling, and the waiting list for them, losing wagon volume is largely irrelevant, especially with the updates next year.

Jeez if that's the direction fords heading down I might not buy another car from them.

[bunna]

If Expensive Daewoo hadn't done the sportswagon this thread would not have gone this far. Everyone would've said "aww" and moved on.

Ford made the call, now they're making the best of it. The territory was always supposed to be the extra volume seller for ford aus, and it is. Expensive Daewoo need their wagon because without it they just have the commodore.

[IBOO57]

You are a tad sensitive eh Bunna?

Even the most Die Hard Ford fan would have to agree that Ford Aus are super slow on the uptake

of new ideas or just catching up with others.

Let alone there lack of interest in bringing in highly acclaimed models from overseas.

Surely theres some Muppet at Ford HQ that has read all the glowing reviews of the Ford Focus RS

and yet they still dont bother bringing them in when every car Mag in Oz has basically begged

and said it would be a mistake to not bring it in.

No R&D required it already exists in Right hand drive overseas so I dont know what there waiting for?