The author of this article either needs more knowledgeable sources or a new crystal ball.

Correct all on counts about the pitiful D3s and the venerable Panthers.

You would think Ford would learn their lesson on this but I guarantee you there will be another D3 experient down the pipe while the Panthers rot on the vine.

Ford is rivaling GM now for redundancy in their SUV offerings, not a good thing.

D3’s can come and go, but the Panther platform paid for itself during the Reagan Administration – long live the CV/GM/TC’s of the past 3 decades!

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!!

Your numbers sound right, and factor in the costs of retooling both the Chicago and Oakville for D3s and it looks really, really ugly.

IIRC, the Chicago retool was $800,000,000 and Oakville (according to this blog) is a cool billion.

Maybe they should have retooled them for Panthers instead. (kidding…I think)

P71_Crown Vic:
‘hardly-changed-in-10-years’ Panthers?

How about ‘occasionally-updated-over-30-years’?

D3’s can come and go, but the Panther platform paid for itself during the Reagan Administration – long live the CV/GM/TC’s of the past 3 decades!

Ford wanted to do their own version of the Pontiac Aztec and they succeeded!

Just like when Honda hit the cocaine too hard one night and built their own Avalanche clone.

And then Toyota had to build a billion dollar truck plant in Texas and build huge trucks. Can’t get a useful crew cab dually diesel model to haul anything meaningful with though.

http://www.bolthitch.com/images/Take-3-truck.jpg

Well the Flex is about 17′ long(only 3″ shorter than the Expedition), so pretty much all of the 1-2′ shorter midsized crossovers and wagons with 3rd rows meet this criteria: XC90, Sante Fe, Highlander, etc.

Based on looks alone, a few will think its unique — but most will realize its ugly.

This is NOT like the Taurus — whose jelly bean shape inspired a generation of cars.

This is plain ugly.

/p

As it stands so far this year, the Taurus is (finally) beating the Crown Vic in sales (31,916 VS. 27,440), but only by 4476 units. The Grand Marquis is STILL spanking the Sable to no end. So far this year, the Sable has mustered only 9,426 sales while the Grand Marquis has sold 16,741. A difference of 7,315. And guess which ones Ford makes more money on??? The frequently changed D3 cars or the ‘hardly-changed-in-10-years’ Panthers?

I have been told by people that work at the ST. Thomas assembly plant that they can put a Panther car (Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, Town Car) together for between $9K and $12K. So even at the average $18,000 fleet price, Ford is making between $6K and $9K on each car.

I doubt Ford has recouped their initial costs from the Five Hundred/Montego/Freestyle, let alone the Taurus/Taurus X/Sable/Lincoln Taurus/Flex…

Ha! I’m dislexic or something. I saw 1,379 and read it as 1,739. Sorry about that. The point is still valid.

As for the May 5th. Automotive News has 59 Flexes produced the first week of May – the first official week of Job1. These wouldn’t be pre-production units either if they’re recorded as produced units. The month of May was slow ramp up, but they were in production the entire month.

I can understand the S80 not selling (it’s not that good, frankly, next to it’s competition), but the others are actually quite good. The problem is threefold:
* They’re expensive cars, and Ford doesn’t seem to give much in the way of price.
* Other than Consumer Reports, reviewers have panned them.
* Most importantly, Ford can’t market it’s way out of a wet paper bag.

I thought you were exaggerating when you said the MKS will be the 8th vehicle to fail on the D3 platform, but you might have actually been understating how many vehicles have failed to meet sales expectations on this platform:

1)Volvo S80
2)Ford Five Hundred
3)Mercury Montego (or whatever the Five Hundred clone was called)
4)Ford Freestyle
5)Ford Taurus
6)Mercury Sable
7)Ford Taurus X
8)Ford Flex
9)Lincoln MKS

I’m not sure if the Volvo S80 and/or Taurus X technically count, but that is a lot of cars that haven’t done well using what is supposedly a very decent platform

Beat me to it. The “D3 curse” continues with no end in sight. Nobody wants a big car/CUV right now, and anything shaped like a gigantic brick will fail. I guess nobody figured out that the market is so saturated that a unique offering like the Flex makes it a niche car only.

Since P71 has such a unique name, I’ll take it another step: I bet the fleet-only Police Intercepter sells as well as the Flex, maybe as well as he Flex + Taurus.

Frank? Got any sales figures for that?

Second to that, looking at the S-Max or Galaxy minivans–the latter of which seats seven adults in relative comfort–there are a lot more efficient ways to use space and fuel economy to move seven people around town. But, arguably, styling would have to be compromised.*

*I think the S-Max and Galaxy are very good looking, personally.

But you not only have high gas prices, you have houses dropping in value, a general economy that is teetering on the edge of a recession (or already in it), and a credit crunch. That’s a lot of freakout, especially for the type of person who has the means to drop 40k on a vehicle (but not enough to get a lexus or mercedes suv), and who needs 7 seats (lots of mouths to feed). They are probably watching their 401k and house equity shrink and are worrying about their jobs.

In other words, its a really bad time to try to get them to pony up lots of money for a vehicle that isn’t going to provide any relief at the pump.

What other cars out there any smaller has this? We know of ones much bigger that do…

If you are a 5-7 people family you don’t have a lot of options. It might be biggish, but small compared to SUV’s or having to drive the family in 2 cars.