The success of the CTS lineup seems to have come largely at the expensive of the STS (Seville) and DTS (deVille) product ranges. How typical of GM, one new product does reasonably well at the expense of the two products which used to be the bread-and-butter.

The lurch back to rear wheel drive for Cadillac has by and large been a marketplace failure. Way back in 1967 Cadillac took a big leap forward with the world first modern large FWD luxury car. Now GM is chasing the herd rather than standing proudly alone. Enthusiasts gush about the perceived advantages of RWD, but the majority of people who buy Cadillacs mostly either don’t care, or prefer FWD.

Perhaps with the MKS Lincoln will pick up the mantle of building American style luxury cars on FWD platforms. All other things being equal, FWD has a fuel economy advantage, especially in local driving, due to less rotating mass to be accelerated and decelerated. Driveline friction losses are also lower with FWD.

Or it could be that sales of the RL, M35 and STS are and always have been pathetic. How did they manage to leave off the 9-5 and S80 (oops, no dissing relatives)?

C- for effort. Compared to a F—– for GM and a truancy report for Chrysler.

I guess that it would be inconceivable that the sales could be due to a good product?

I had to laugh at that. I wonder why they didn’t mention anything about the Flex’s sales figures.

The Marketing guys always think the answer is Marketing. If a bad product won’t sell, we just need more marketing! If a good product sells, it must be because we did such a great job marketing it! They are so busy patting themselves on the back they fail to consider that it may actually have something to do with the quality and pricing of the product. Oh wait, at the 2.8 they have a lot of input in the quality/options/pricing also, don’t they. Maybe that explains a LOT!

Someone set up a phone-line between those, and send them a calendar while you’re at it. Clearly a novelty item to these bozos, but it might help their planning when they figure out what it is.

In the end, Ford’s switching mechanism, which was at the center of the exchange, didn’t bare much resemblance to Toyota’s and is widely considered to be superior to Toyota’s. With each change Ford makes to its system, it gets even further from Toyota’s. As Ford transitions to new suppliers and away from Sanyo in the near future, the system will also diverge more.

Toyota, for its part, considered Ford’s IP and decided to invest more heavily in Isuzu to procure and develop its diesel tech. In the end, neither company really did much with what they exchanged – but it stopped what could have been a bad court battle.

That’s how I understand the exchange. I would like to hear more detail from anyone who actually knows, but I do know that Ford’s hybrid system is not just Toyota’s in a Ford body.

Drive Green – People tend to forget that Ford is the only domestic manufacturer with a real (i.e. not GMs ‘two-mode’) hybrid system,

Two-mode is a real system, but it’s only available on the GMT900 trucks. It’s actually a good technology, but has problems scaling down to passenger cars (well, it’s probably more accurate to say that it has problems being cheap enough to scale down to cars that GM would rather not make in the first place). The nicest part of two-mode is that it’s theoretically easy to implement; it’s basically a (complex) transmission and battery, rather than a system of motor/generators and an ICE, as is Toyota’s HSD.

BAS is the so-weak-it-barely-qualifies-as-a-hybrid system on the Vue, Aura and Malibu. Honda’s IMA system is more or less the same.

But yes, Ford is the only domestic with a hybrid system installed in a car that people actually want to buy. But I’m sure GM will have something by 2010.

Ford does buy its batteries from the same suppier as Toyota, which has added to the confusion.

Drive Green – People tend to forget that Ford is the only domestic manufacturer with a real (i.e. not GMs ‘two-mode’) hybrid system, the Hybrid Escape is a great little cute-ute, and with the system going into upcoming fusions, there will be an actual Prius-fighter in the lineup.

Isn’t Ford’s hybrid system for the Escape the first or second generation Toyota Synergy Drive Hybrid system? I thought I had read somewhere that is was. Anyone know for sure?

Drive Green – People tend to forget that Ford is the only domestic manufacturer with a real (i.e. not GMs ‘two-mode’) hybrid system, the Hybrid Escape is a great little cute-ute, and with the system going into upcoming fusions, there will be an actual Prius-fighter in the lineup.

Mustang Glass Roof – It’s actually pretty cool looking from inside. Gives you a vert-like view of the sky while keeping the coupes better looking body lines. Not sure why it warrents a press release though…

Blind Spot Thingie – Sounds like a nice little feature, not sure how groundbreaking it is, but hey, better visibility is good, right?

Lincoln Colors – Why a press release just describing the colors that the MKS comes in? Cinnamon is very cool though, see it in person on a sunny day and it makes brown sexy. Tuxedo black is also the sparkliest black I have ever seen, another great sunny day color. And though the response to the MKS has been fairly lukewarm to negative here, at the dealership customers are absolutely loving it. The big criticism around here seems to be ‘gasp, OMG, a FWD big lincoln based on a platform that also underpins the Taurus? how could they?’ See the car next to a Taurus, get in both, you would never know that they shared DNA. The MKS has a top tier interior, great quality materials, looks sharp on the outside, and drives very well, who needs RWD when FWD will handle just as well in 99.9% of driving situations? We are consistently selling MKSs as soon as they come in, have a waiting list for certain color combinations, and these are all going out at full sticker with no incentives. The public appears to like the car…

So the people at Ford are smoking rocks ?. That explains alot.

“Drive Green”

So the folks at Ford WANT us to buy Priuses from Toyota ?……

“Drive quality”

….AND Hondas ?.

With advertising like that no wonder why they’re losing market share.

I’m still waiting for Ford to come out with an Eddie Bauer edition Focus.

I have to admit, that glass roof is cool, but I imagine costly to replace and I would rather Ford have offered a sunroof instead.

And at least the MKS is only 4th from last in the luxury sedan sales.