Ford Has a Brainwave: Build the Cars People Want to Buy
Ford tells us that J.D. Power tells them that “30 percent of new vehicle shoppers who walk away from a dealership do so because the dealer did not have the exact vehicle with the colors and options they wanted.” Yeah, right. That what they say… Never mind. As suspicious as this factoid may be, Ford has decided it should use one of them there computer-type things to “determine the vehicle configurations customers in different regions of the country most want.” And once they do that, why not “significantly reduce the number of orderable combinations across its vehicle lineup”? You know; like, I’m thinking… Honda! “For example, the new 2010 Ford Fusion will be available in 104 popular orderable combinations, compared with 2,602 configurations for the 2008 model year. For the entire Ford brand, the company has reduced orderable configurations by 90 percent from the 2008 model year.” No seriously. This makes sense. It’s a good sign the lights are [still] on in Dearborn. Long overdue.
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I compare the ordering options available on my 67 Ford Galaxie vs. a 09 Grand Marquis, or an 09 Sable, and wonder if we have really made any progress. If they could do it in 1967 with clunky old technology, why not now? It makes it easier for the manfacturer, but not for me.
It's going to take more than that. I don't want front wheel drive. Therefore, no matter how many trim combinations Ford offers in FWD, I'm not going to buy one. On the other hand, I will and have waited three months for a car to be built exactly to my specifications. In Japan, there is a custom bicycle manufacturer who builds only to special order. In the showroom, the salesman determines the correct dimensions to perfectly fit the customer and sends the data to the factory. The finished bicycle is ready three days later. Actually, they could just as easily offer next day delivery. However, they believe that waiting a couple of days intensifies the customer's experience.
As a side note, every single climate control unit (AC/heater/fancoil/etc) built and sold by Trane/American Standard is custom built from the ground up with a bewildering array of thousands of options, down to the color of the exterior cabinet to the number of loops in the heater coil. Yet they make money and have for nearly a century. Hmmmmm.