The Ford years have not been good for the brand.

In Volvo’s heyday they sold extremely sturdy, efficient, safe cars priced at about what a mid-range Buick was selling for. It was an alternative car for people who thought differently about their automotive purchases.

Now Volvo means exactly what? The safety angle is old because everyone is using it. Modern Volvos are no where near as tank-like in build quality as the 240 and earlier cars were. The next time you come across a 240 check out how hefty the body panel metal is. Volvos used to be an engineer’s car, now they are just trying to be hip and trendy like all the other wannabes.

Volvo should have built the ultimate family minivan 15 years ago … but no, they built the stupid C70 pseudo-sport-coupe instead. Idiots.

The last thing the world needed was another V-8 powered SUV ugly box, but that is where Volvo invested it’s money. Chasing money without any real core principles ALWAYS leads to long term disaster. Just ask GM.

Taurus X/Taurus/Sable/MKS are all built from the Volvo “D” platform. It’s called a platform because it’s just that — a starting point. Every vehicle is unique (except the Sable, which is mostly the same at the Taurus, It’s a Mercury after all and Mercury is as Ford does)

Fusion/MKZ/Milan/Edge are based on the CD3 platform (BTW, all of this information is available on wikipedia.com and is fairly reliable.) Again, it’s just a platform — the engineering is unique for each vehicle.

Well, I’m not going to troll around the site looking up quotes but it seems to me there’s been no complaining about Ford “leveraging its assets” between Mazda, Volvo and Ford. The variious platforms under the various cousins are doing a good job.

The problem I recollect hearing is too much overlap. I’m not sure I entirely agree but that’s the charge I recall. And then there’s too much badge engineering within the traditional Ford/Lincoln/Mercury brands. The MKZ/Fusion/Milan are a nice car. That’s A nice car. The three flavors business is overkill. The cars are practically identical. Not quite as identical as, say, a ‘99 Cutlass and a ‘99 Malibu but still too damned close.

Ford’s car line up:
Focus- 100% American (and crappy)
Mustang – 100% American
Fusion – Mazda
Taurus – Volvo
Taurus X – Volvo
Edge – Mazda

The bread and butter cars are all from its business affiliates

I think the answer to that question is very simple: MONEY !!!!!!!!! When your in the deep trouble Ford is with very little sign of getting out anytime soon, badge engineering ( or cloning as some call it) and using affiliate parts to cut corners in development is a cheap way of getting product out on the showroom floor. By using Volve and Mazda chassis and componets FoMoCo is saving a truck load of money and then promptly burning through it every single month. I just wonder how far Frod will sink till it hits bottom or files for bankruptcy protection??? The money has to run out sometime. Can a sale of Ford’s chunk of Mazda and Volvo be too far off and be going to the highest bidder??? Unless they start selling the mansions of the Ford family, the property on which the closed factories sit or sat or cut the big shits hugh and excessive pay (which we know WON’T happen !!!) FoMoCo is out of assests to hawk to the highest bidder.

That’s exactly what I thought of when I read this.

Ford’s car line up:
Focus- 100% American (and crappy)
Mustang – 100% American
Fusion – Mazda
Taurus – Volvo
Taurus X – Volvo
Edge – Mazda

The bread and butter cars are all from its business affiliates.

Does it mean that it will allow Volvo to once again sell their 6speed manual transmission in the U.S., instead of forcing us to drive their crappy slushbox?

Volvo’s demise is due to selling big, fat, V8 Fords. Bring back some small, durable, all wheel drive or rear wheel drive cars with decent load carrying capacity and lots of sporting feel.