Jaguar out of F1?

[Mike H]

Yeah, go on Ford f off back to the good 'ol USA.  Typical US reaction when things get 'tough', come on everyone come back in and shut the doors, the outside world (them foreigners) is nasty.  To quote George DubYa: "most of our imports come from abroad"

They are making the same mistake as British Leyland/BMC, you can't have one company made up of many smaller companies that all compete with each other.

             

If it wasn't for the fact that it affects UK jobs I would be laughing my head off right now.

[Fat Albert]

'cos they're cheap

Historically Ford achieved market share through discounting to Fleet buyers consequently Ford depreciation is the amonst the worst of any mainstream manufacturer.

Ford service and parts need to be cheap because they are pathetically unreliable compared to the Japanese

The Dagenham Dustbin label was and is (if they still made cars there) appropriate, the performance versions built the brand image, christ, Skoda's are better built today.

IMO this is a political decision made for reasons totally unassociated with marketing

[jonlewis]

It is difficult to see how Minardi and Jordan are going to survive this.

At best they are going to get the same engines as they have already got (i.e not good enough) at a higher price than they pay today.

At worst they will get no engines and will need to completley redesign any car they were already making to take a different one (Costing a fortune)

A sad day for all

[neilb]

Part of the reason that Ford are looking at dropping the works rally team is to get round the 2 driver rule, by suppling a number of private teams with works standard cars they can get more top drivers in there cars for less money.

[Sideshow Bob]

I am at Cosworth Racing. At the moment we are still working on 2005 engine design, and the intention is that Minardi & Jordan will run these , & as Jaguar's chassis design is to suit this engine , if they find a buyer they will be fairly tied to our engine. Development on WRC has been limited now for the last 12 month's. Ford has made no decisition yet to fund this project for next season , but they have indicated that they are pulling out of motorsport in general in the UK.

Fingers crossed Cosworth will find a buyer that has more of an interest in motor-sport than Ford.

[James]

So much for fords clasic slogan "race on sunday sell on monday"

trouble ut mill?

To be hounest I wouldent by another ford The last one we bought (From new) fell apart we ended up getting rid of it within two years it was so poor we now have a Skoda octavia ill never change.

[thos]

So what's the story with Cosworth-Racing ? I thought Audi bought Cosworth ?

[Nick M]

IMO you only have to look at which products create profit for Ford ....Transit and possibly Land Rover/Volvo in Europe, SUVs/ Trucks and Ford Credit in US....... to see why they have to stop the cash haemorrhaging by moving out of products/ventures which are not contributing to long term profitability and protecting their share price.

FWIW......It would be nice to keep Ford in Rallying and Cosworth going as I believe they could produce exciting road cars for general sale like they did in the 70's and 80's...trouble is Peugeot/Citreon, VW/Audi and the Japs (Subaru/Honda/Toyota) now offer the "inspirational" cars for the young market that Ford once controlled.......

Ford is in real danger of falling out of the Top 3 manufacturers and must be worrying about a take over if Ford of Europe doesnt stop losing vast amounts of cash.....

Ford Truck sales far outweigh any of their other product lines in the US, not least because you can build a truck and an SUV on the same platform.  The only cars you see in any numbers are Mustangs and Focarses.  The rest are all marginal at best, not least because they're built averagely at best.

They also need to ditch the Lincoln and Mercury brands IMO.

Ford has been in trouble for a while.  Competition from the Japanese is getting tougher as they build better trucks / SUVs for less money.  They look better, they're built better, they drive better, they're more reliable....

Ford has never done F1 properly - look at it's efforts in the 80s with the Ford branded team and it's turbo V6.  They've dabbled, but never really committed to it.

The WRC program is, IMO, their strongest bit of international motorsport and they're using a car people can associate with.  Just look at what the Impreza did for Subaru !  So while it may not be as important as it was, motorsport can still sell cars.  Provided you build cars which the customer wants to buy....

Quite frankly you could see from day one that Jaguar was never going to be a long term interest for Ford.  Too little money and too many people watching over that money.  Getting rid of the few people, like Bobby Rahal, who might have made a positive difference was also a costly error.

*shrugs*

screw 'em - Jaguar was never an F1 team and everyone still harps back to their days in sportscar racing.

[felters]

Typical US reaction when things get 'tough', come on everyone come back in and shut the doors, the outside world (them foreigners) is nasty.  To quote George DubYa: "most of our imports come from abroad"

Mike's observation is often true. Not just in cars either...

I've worked for US Computer companies for most of my life and have seen this response to difficult trading conditions many times. Couple of points to consider...

- most of Fords shareholders are in the US. The Ford family still owns 40% of the voting stock. Fords share price has more than halved in the last five years.

- the trend towards SUV's has impacted Jaguars market share. Lincoln Navigator and Range Rover buyers could have bought a Jag... Jaguars error is not to have an SUV - but of course that would not happen as they are both part of Fords PAG.

- I do believe that ultimately they will move production to the US for the larger vehicles - XJ and R/Rover. BMW, M/Benz, Toyota have all done it. The transportation savings are huge and you avoid the exchange rate issue.

and finally... would you buy a Jag? I'm right in their target market and there is no way. I'm sorry for the guys losing their jobs but they badly make a product that is not world class. The (US) company I work for here has two in the car park out of about 1500 cars. There are countless BMW, Lexus, Mercs, Porsche... why is anyone surprised at the closure?

EDIT to add that there are two Cosworth companies.

Cosworth Technology does engine/powertrain development for car manufacturers inc. Ford. It's owned by Audi.

Cosworth Racing are the guys that do the F1 stuff and are still owned by Ford - just.

[Paul M]

Sad day for F1, unfortunatley this is what happens when you let multi-billion $ conglomerates takes over a "sport", can you imagine Frank Williams, Eddy Jordan, Ron Dennis (or Ken Tyrell, Ron Chapman etc) just shutting up shop overnight without kicking, screaming and fighting to the bitter end - these are people that remortgaged their houses and put every single penny they had into their race teams, for whom it was much more that a psort or business but a heartfelt passion, nowadays passion is replaced by accountants and spreadsheets. Lets hope this is the wake up call that F1 needs. I hope Jordan & Arrows can survive this but I think that at least one of them will fold without the Ford engines, shame as Eddy & Paul Stoddart are about the only 2 passionate team owners left.