Dang Q+C, I honestly think you are wrong on most of your points. So wrong in fact that I wonder if you aren't drunk. I say that with a smile on my face.

I think Ford's buying of Jaguar was similar to buying a run down old Victorian house for a great price. There was prestige in owning it, a potential to fix it up and sell it later or if the prestige was high enough to keep it. Sadly once Ford started living in the old house they found all sorts of really bad things going on, a culture of British labor state inefficiency that made them recoil away from the house. Now that they knew the house had no value they couldn't sell it so they dug into it and started repairing the failed culture.

A huge part of fixing the culture was to reorganize and reprogram the employees to actually care about the product they were building. Jag's late 90's tech was almost as bad as the quality. Ford was able to revise the electronics and bring manufacturing standards up along with reduce warranty claims. During this time frame Ford also improved a huge amount. It's interesting the Tata bought Jaguar looking for a high end name to give them prestige just like Ford did.

Comparing all makes of car from 1980 until 2010 it's amazing how far the tech on the cars came. I don't think it's fair to class them. Each car in it's time frame, intended use and duty was world class at that moment. Even the God awful looking early Taurus's were world class. Look at the Mustang which kept it's 1974 designed MacPherson strut front end up until 2004. None were superstars but they were the absolute best bang for the buck and had the highest performance potential out of all high volume producers. It's been argued that without a Fox body Mustang that today's cars would be much more mundane and worry about fuel economy versus performance.

As far as steeling the tech, I don't know. I think both groups gained a lot of knowledge from each other. I feel certain that Jaguar would have fallen if not for Ford's purchase and I'm sure that Ford would still be building world class cars without Jaguars input from those years. What is interesting is if you look as the Lincoln LS / S type and compare it to the '05 Mustang there are some huge similarities. Lincoln's are always several years ahead of Ford's in design. That's actually why I bought my '05 LS vs. a '13 Mustang (Well, $7k vs. $34k too). I could buy the enjoy the tech for a discount price. The LS will out handle most cars on the road as well. In comparison to the XK all of the LS sub structures up front are aluminum. The chassis is also very stiff with using a riveted structure.

So, I don't think it's fair to say one company took advantage of the other, especially that Ford was the loser in the bunch.

 

There is a simple unemotional way to look at this and an irrefutable truth.

Today:
Ford is virtually absent from the luxury SUV market. And its the biggest money maker.

Ford does not have a single competing car with BMW, Lexus, Audi, Infinity. That is a ton of cars.

If they had actually turned around Volvo, or Jaguar, they would have had 3 world class Luxury SUVs and cars that compete with BMW, Audi, Lexus.

So why is it that Ford could not complete the job at Jaguar Range Rover and Volvo??
Their only logical excuse is that we like to quit on the last mile!

The Chinese and the Indians had no such problem.

 

I submit one succinct proof that Ford is spinning the yarn about what happened in the marriage.
Jaguar and Volvo have become exactly who they promised they could be with little help. The can compete with the best of them.
Ford is exactly where it was, uncompetitive in the world of Luxury and SUV. Ford cant even compete with Chevy when it comes to SUVs.

 

BACK ON TOPIC - the thread is titled Orange Coolant top off and not a rant on the Ford business model.

Graham

 

The spec coolant spec was developed for Ford cars.

The DB9 was an exercise in aluminum from Ford owned Aston Martin.

The XK was an exercise in taking the DB9 and making it economical to manufacture.

The current gen F150 is a descendent of the DB9/XK.

The two final cars I was looking at buying both had strong Ford influence, Mazda, and Jaguar. The Jaguar won as it was older.

 

I think you forgot a few ie the Ford Bronco, the ranger, escort cosworth, crown vic, and the gt40?

 

Old dead thread here, NOTAXKR. I agree with you though, there are quite a many Fords that are worth a bit.