Ford Claims Aluminum F-150 Is On Track, TTAC Sources Report Delays
A recent note by MorganStanley warned of a “slow changeover, with tight supply” for Ford’s new aluminum F-150, and while Ford America’s boss Joe Hinrichs told Bloomberg that “everything is “on schedule and everything is going as planned”, TTAC is hearing different things.
Dovetailing with earlier reports that Ford was having difficulty stamping the aluminum spec’d by the Blue Oval – which forced Job 1 to be pushed back by as much as 10 weeks – our sources informed us that MorganStanley’s prediction is likely to come true.
While our source was vague, he noted that the F-150 launch team was in danger of missing key milestones for the project, and that team members may have to work through the summer shutdown.
So far, Ford has been able to deftly work around the aluminum stamping issue – although an earlier launch was initially planned (we heard initially, launch was planned for anywhere from Memorial Day to Q3 2014), Ford PR never announced anything but a Q4 launch date (or “late availability” as another source put it). But now, word of delays appears to be spreading further.
More by Derek Kreindler
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in other news, the planet still rotates upon its given axis.
I'm sure that Ford will be paying a huge sum of overtime to engineers to get their golden goose to the market place on time.
Ford will say anything until they get caught...
Insurance companies will just love insuring the new F150. Imagine the cost to "repair" and finding a body shop that can play with aluminum.