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Detroit, 3:46 PM
Thu Nov 26
12 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/10/08
Suck it long, and suck it hard.
Love,
Your Home Country
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12/10/08
"A number of reasons:-
1 they did attempt to make a AWD using the Volvo running gear and a 280BHP ST but the driving experience was not edgey enough and it did not handle as well as you would have expected
2 If the car had been AWD it would have attracted a much higher road tax in the UK (due to the extra weight) which is the biggest market the car has been designed for. As it stands the car is only 225g/co2 which is 1 gram higher than the current ST.
3 The cost of the AWD system meant that the car would not have been financially viable.
4 The performance gains from the AWD system were not enough to warrant further investigation."
8000 to be built over two years,50% for the U.K. & i'll have mine in white thanks...
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12/10/08
WOOOOOOOOO!!!
12/10/08
A Rally Ka, Puma or Focus would probably sell well here now. Oh well.
12/10/08
It's a downward spiral. They're going to start offering Euro products here, but it's TBD whether people will pay close to MSRP for them.
I have high hopes for Fiesta and the C1 Focus here.
12/10/08
Just a thought
Scroggzilla
Democracy/Extortion loving kaiju
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12/10/08
So the average Focus buyer doesn't give a shit about driving dynamics. Why can't the US Focus at least look like this?
And then offer a proper Euro focus in the US for those that understand what a hatch is supposed to be.
Except lose those f@#%ing fender vents.
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However, I do have a question: Why do people use PS? Go with HP or kW!
12/10/08
It literally means HP, but is still a little different than our HP measure.
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... ♪I'm blue, da ba de, da ba die, Da ba de, da ba die♪
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What's funny is the 2 cars you list ARE NOT commercial successes. The C170 outsales both combined I'd bet by a fair margin.
The public at large does not want what we do.
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Yes they can be profitable in smaller volumes, but they must be based on a "larger volume" car....and 99% of the time those special ones never recoup the investment of all the tooling. If you sell 10,000 units of a special make over 2 years, every Mil of investment in Engineering and tooling, which there will be a ton of, needs $50 more on the car to make it up. Add that up with the more expensive parts themselves, and it rarely returns a profit.
But moreso my point is Focus sales are far more succesfull than the Lancer, WRX, etc. So, with like cost structures, which would be more profitable?
12/10/08
If you will notice, many of your arguments come down to 'we have these regulations here in the US that are preventing us from doing X.." That is a regulatory issue. If, instead of lobbying for LOANS, some bright bulb started to talk about lifting that regulatory load, these cars could BE HERE TOMMORROW. And if now isn't the time to do it, it will be never. Somebody in Detroit needs to pull a string or two and start that conversation in Washington. AND PRONTO!