Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: ItsuMitsubishi
These guy's are more marketing genius and engineering brokers than they are a "motor company".
Listen, I KNOW you love to hate on Ford for anything and everything, but REALLY?
Ford was the money behind Mazda not failing first during the 60's, and then again during the 90's, when Ford increased its stake in Mazda to 33.9%.
I'm not saying Ford was the brains of the operation; Mazda had plenty of those, and contributed to Ford immensely, but Ford had the money. Something at times, Mazda didn't have a lot of.
Won't argue with ya there. Ford has money.
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That being said, Ford had plenty of innovation long before their involvement with Mazda. The 427SOHC was a very "ahead of its time" powerplant. As was the DOHC Indy Cammer that Ford ran with Lotus. The BOSS 429 continues to dominate Pro Stock Mountain Motor, did Mazda every produce a pushrod HEMI capable of 820ci displacement and several thousand HP on gasoline? No?
The 427SOHC was an impressive 8000rpm V8 no doubt, but there's no mistaking that it was a hand-built race engine. You've said yourself that the LSx was "inspired" by the Windsor. Such influence, what happened to
that FoMoCo?
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So while it is definitely true that Ford benefited greatly from their relationship with Mazda, Mazda likely would not exist (or not in the way they exist today) if it had not been for the financial backing provided by Ford. And much of Ford's (North American) money has traditionally come from their truck division, which has little if any Mazda influence in it.
Ford's forte has never been small cars (in North America). Whilst this has always been Mazda's. So it only made sense from a financial standpoint for Ford to capitalize on this. In return, Mazda got money and the ability to continue to operate as a company. Not quite the same "type" of benefit, but a rather significant one nonetheless.
There was definitely synergy between the two companies. While I don't see it as 'bashing', it definitely comes from a good place. We all
know Ford has the resources to be one of the best automakers out there. They are historic for crying out loud, so WHY haven't they led the pack on the
engineering front, outside of full size pickups? I feel this way about
any company that chooses to spend most of their money convincing people how awesome their brand is, rather than just doing it and redirecting the brag-money for R&D. You have to admit, Ford's marketing is NOT cheap. It's a dominant corporate belief that consumer psychology is more profitable than than the actual work put into the product Ford know it. They've lamented time and again about the ground-up CDW27 Mondeo project, which ran it's course and now they're back to the modified Mazda G platform (CD3). It's not that the platform was bad, they just hated spending the money to develop it!
BUT on the bright side, the recent renaissance at Ford is starting to look like they might be gaining traction on the path to doing things for themselves once again. The big moves were dumping Volvo and Mazda (yet retaining rights to the current engineering which is MAKING them right now), and this new Aussie truck platform looks very promising. With the engineering they hold now, it would be nearly impossible for them to "bollocks up" future generations and release anything inferior to what they already have- and that's a good thing for them. The Europe and Australian divisions will presumably play the biggest roles in Ford's future success since there's no one left in Detroit. Now if they can just 'focus' on what really matters. I'd love to see what the company can
really do. I mean, wouldn't you be happy to see a RWD panther replacement rather than pushing a FWD Volvo chassis to fill that role? If not something from the Aussie stable, why not develop the D2 platform into a full-size car? Beyond how I feel about Ford's manner of operation, I still believe they have a savvy business plan for the brand, with maybe an ace or two up their sleeve.
