Dearborn claims the Ford Aus archives

[roddy1960]

Originally Posted by hackney

People have moved on from Falcon(certainly not "mighty") there are so much better vehicles in the market place,Ford lacked "vision" quite a few years ago(& in my opinion "lost their way"& I would be close to the mark on this one.)Doubt they will ever be a #1 again.That is now the domain of the Japanese & Korean's. Should have "dumped" Falcon quite awhile ago."Brand Loyalty"?Obviously Ford do not have that any more do they? Otherwise, they would be selling a lot more vehicles than they do now.The only saving "grace" for them at the moment is Ranger,otherwise they would be in one hell of a mess.Saying that,their range of vehicles is quite good,but the buying public are purchasing a lot more of other brands.I doubt I will go back to them,in the foreseeable future.(& I have had many,many over the years.)Cheers

G'day Hackney and all...
Fair enough...Sorry for my terse reply initially and I do agree and I take your points from your perspective in many regards . I do personally think that the Falcon was/is a terrific car for Australia , not elsewhere necessarily and obviously and most likely why export was never going to happen outside the South Pacific and South Africa.

.There was a time before deregulation of the comparitavely small Australian car market that Ford , Holden, Chrysler and later Toyota sold by today's standards ridiculous numbers..Falcon was number one outright model for a time and 80-90,000 units a year was expected..Then Cortina , Escort , Laser , Telstar , Fiesta , Bronco , F100, etc.sold okay too. Days long gone now.

When I'm ready to buy again , might be a few years now having not long picked up a beaut FG XR6 that I absolutely love , I won't write off Ford just yet but I'd have to want to see a company that has learned it's lesson and offers cars that more people will take a good look at.
They'll need to bend their back more than ever to come even remotely close to achieve that. A new fresh strategy might help if that is what they want to do. No harm in trying surely . As they say , "You can't accumulate until you speculate ".. ARE YOU GOING TO LISTEN FORD AUSTRALIA ?

Cheers Rod..

[hackney]

Originally Posted by roddy1960

G'day Hackney and all...
Fair enough...Sorry for my terse reply initially and I do agree and I take your points from your perspective in many regards . I do personally think that the Falcon was/is a terrific car for Australia , not elsewhere necessarily and obviously and most likely why export was never going to happen outside the South Pacific and South Africa.

.There was a time before deregulation of the comparitavely small Australian car market that Ford , Holden, Chrysler and later Toyota sold by today's standards ridiculous numbers..Falcon was number one outright model for a time and 80-90,000 units a year was expected..Then Cortina , Escort , Laser , Telstar , Fiesta , Bronco , F100, etc.sold okay too. Days long gone now.

When I'm ready to buy again , might be a few years now having not long picked up a beaut FG XR6 that I absolutely love , I won't write off Ford just yet but I'd have to want to see a company that has learned it's lesson and offers cars that more people will take a good look at.
They'll need to bend their back more than ever to come even remotely close to achieve that. A new fresh strategy might help if that is what they want to do. No harm in trying surely . As they say , "You can't accumulate until you speculate ".. ARE YOU GOING TO LISTEN FORD AUSTRALIA ?

Cheers Rod..

Again,it is not Ford Aus who need to listen,it is HQ in Michigan.Unfortunately they do not hold the "purse strings".The Yanks have their own strategy for Ford Aus.(& globally I should imagine.)We are going to end up with a lot of "Euro" sourced Ford's into the future,which is not an entirely bad thing,as they have some good product's coming out of there.Just need to get their quality up to scratch & match the Japanese & Korean's. EG:My Qashqai runs "rings" around my G6E in this dept.(These come out of Nissan's massive Sunderland plant in the UK,very well put together vehicles,in fact I intend to tour the plant next year, that is the plan anyway.)Never thought I would "jump"but,there you are.Cheers

[wodahs]

well seems this thread has deviated far from the original Ford Aus archives discussion

[roddy1960]

G'day Yep , sorry about that , not intentional but good point . We will agree on some things and agree to disagree on others and get back on topic perhaps.

On that : Archives to Dearborn. Pretty clear whatever Dearborn decides it wants..it's theirs.. SO BE IT.
Last night I was speaking on the phone to a real good friend in Baltimore , Maryland . I asked him about all this. He told me ,other than what I've shown him on Ford vehicles from here , he knew nothing and very politely informed me that he wasn't really that interested. I suspect that this opinion would be that of the vast majority of the USA.
I even asked him about the archives and he suggested that if they were the property of Ford worldwide that's who decides what happens to these archives and maybe in the home of Ford in the USA is as good as any.

We will still get to keep a lot of general artifacts by the sounds of it at the Ford Australia HQ etc and the significant and historical vehicle displays no doubt will stay here for posterity to show generations to come what this little outpost of the Ford Motor Company was up to between 1925 and 2016 and beyond.

Fair enough for me I suppose..That's how it is..
Cheers Rod..

[Bill M]

Thankfully there are some current and former Ford Australia employees who have the vision to try and retain records that are pertinent to Australian manufacturing for the last 90 years for future interest. Way to many people parroting the corporate line.
I expected better from a Ford forum.
Bill.

[wodahs]

and I wouldn't be surprised if even with the originals being sent to Dearborn that some one would have thought to keep digital or hard type copy's for client situations and maybe other purposes

[Nikked]

Ford Australia have started scanning...and Ford US are planning on putting it all online.

[NX74205]

Originally Posted by roddy1960

I can't really recall a proper ad campaign on Kuga , Focus , Everest etc , definitely nothing much on Mondeo yet.

There's been plenty of ads for the Kuga ("kid ready Ford Kuga") and Everest ("not just another SUV"), less so on the Focus (the last Focus ad I remember was the one with the drums). There's also been plenty of online ads for the Mondeo, as Drive's family car of the year.

Originally Posted by roddy1960

Wouldn't it be good to see Ford not 4th or 5th but one of the top two or three again

Yes, it would, but it's not going to happen so long as people focus more on how much it costs rather than the quality of the car itself and the way they drive. The Focus, for instance, is immeasurably better than the i30 and the Corolla, but people buy those in droves because they're cheaper. The Fiesta is also a better car than most light cars. The Fiesta and Focus are 1 and 3 on the UK year to date sales chart respectively.

The Mondeo came second only to the Passat in Wheels' recent 10 car mid size comparison, while the top selling Camry was 10th.

Ecosport aside, they make cars that are at or very near class leading. If people can't see that, then it's their loss.

[roddy1960]

Originally Posted by NX74205

There's been plenty of ads for the Kuga ("kid ready Ford Kuga") and Everest ("not just another SUV"), less so on the Focus (the last Focus ad I remember was the one with the drums). There's also been plenty of online ads for the Mondeo, as Drive's family car of the year.



Yes, it would, but it's not going to happen so long as people focus more on how much it costs rather than the quality of the car itself and the way they drive. The Focus, for instance, is immeasurably better than the i30 and the Corolla, but people buy those in droves because they're cheaper. The Fiesta is also a better car than most light cars. The Fiesta and Focus are 1 and 3 on the UK year to date sales chart respectively.

The Mondeo came second only to the Passat in Wheels' recent 10 car mid size comparison, while the top selling Camry was 10th.

Ecosport aside, they make cars that are at or very near class leading. If people can't see that, then it's their loss.

G'day ..Once again I stand corrected ..I looked them up and the drums ad was a year ago in 2015 apparently for Focus , previously 2013 with the karaoke ad with sync 2 feature . Everest Trend you are correct I can now recall seeing it once or twice.. but honest injun as they say I cannot recall the Kuga 'kid ' ad ever..However it is there on You Tube..All better though than the blue dress efforts..Ranger features on three or so different ad runs and quite recently too..Will have a look for the Mondeo ones online ..Thanks for jogging my memory on Focus and Everest..Cheers Rod

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by Bill M

Thankfully there are some current and former Ford Australia employees who have the vision to try and retain records that are pertinent to Australian manufacturing for the last 90 years for future interest. Way to many people parroting the corporate line.
I expected better from a Ford forum.
Bill.

The parroting of corporate lines is strong on these forums