Ask The Best And Brightest: How's This For A New Ford Tagline?

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

This terse encapsulation Ford’s alleged brand values comes courtesy of The Blue Oval’s perennially amusing crowdsourced marketing site, The Ford Story.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Fincar1 Fincar1 on Dec 11, 2009

    Whatever rust problems the 1970 Cougars may have had, they didn't hold a candle to cars of the 50's and 60's. I went to college in Iowa in 1957-59, and one of my fellow students from Detroit had a 10-month-old 1957 Ford that was already starting to rust out. I saw 1955 and 1956 Buicks that the entire rear quarter panels outside the wheel cutouts had rusted away. I would think that if you were in a garage with one of those, you could have heard it rust. The 1957-1959 Chrysler products were fairly serious rusters as well. I'm not claiming that I haven't seen 1970's and later cars with rusted-out spots, but not nearly so many, and not so badly rusted.

    • Ronin Ronin on Dec 11, 2009

      My point of reference is the snow belt of Northeastern Ohio, and the salting of streets. Cars of the 70s suffered noticeably worse body rot than what we had seen in the 50s and 60s. The 70s Cougar in question also had rot aft of the rear wheel along the bottom edge of the quarter panel. There was no metal left. As a clumsy lad I tried the cheesclothy mesh stuff impregnated with body filler. The problem was that whatever parts that were still metal that I bonded it to also eventually rotted in a few months. There was nothing left to hang filler on other than thin air. Ford was not alone. I had a 73 Vega whose A-pillars rotted away within two years and could no longer hold the windshield. Long after the fantastic 90-day warranty, Chevy did pay to repair the A-pillars. Rustproofing your new car at an additional 5% of the new car cost was a given. Don't know if it helped. My wife had a new 72 Corolla, and I later bought a 77. Neither was immune to rust, but neither was even in the same galaxy as the Ford and Chevy. In the 70s people laughed at the Toyotas and Datsuns. They did not suddenly appear on the scene and take over. Rather, they had superior quality (including rust resistance, although that admitedly was relative), reliability, and a much cheaper price point. They didn't take over over night, they earned it. In the same way, Ford must earn it, not claim it as a birthright. And unless I see some serious reparation action from sins of the past, Ford won't be first on my list (unless they maybe lower the price even more on the Mustang ragtop with the new v8...)

  • Mark out West Mark out West on Dec 11, 2009

    Guys, the prime economic rationale to "Buy American" is the profit remains in the U.S.

  • Porschespeed Porschespeed on Dec 11, 2009
    Guys, the prime economic rationale to “Buy American” is the profit remains in the U.S. Fair enough. But cars are honestly not that profitable. On say $125B in sales, GM never made more than around $4B. R&D, parts, labor, overhead staff, advertising. Those are the lion's share of the cost of a vehicle. Profit? Meh. In fact, if one could do $120B in sales with vehicles designed, built, assembled, managed, all done in the USA, in terms of the effect on the economy you could set the $4B in profit on fire in the driveway. Give it to the Salvation Army. Whatever. It's not the, what $300 (guessing) that Ford makes in profit on a Fusion. It's who makes the steel, who makes the wire, who designs it, who assembles it, etc... That's where the real impact to our economy comes from. And why buying and American assembled, lotsa American sub parts, lots of American overhead staff Toyota or Honda can be better for the USA than buying a Mexinadian Ford or Chevy.
  • Accs Accs on Dec 20, 2009

    I hate to bang on this drum... But how many tag lines are they going to go through? Honda has had theirs for coming on 20yrs. Nissan's Shift.. isnt particurlally interesting.. but it does mention actually driving the car. Toyota.. well they had What a Feeling... but now even they are slogging through this. Id just like to know.. how much this tag line shit.. costs them every coupla years.

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