GreekGod
07-14-2006, 08:14 AM
MARK PHELAN | BEHIND THE WHEEL: Ford needs Reitzle back
BY MARK PHELAN
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
June 18, 2006
<!-- factboxes, main image --><!-- begin photo/facts --><TABLE cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=5 width=150 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=150 bgColor=#cccccc>'Cars' reaction </TD></TR><TR><TD width=150 bgColor=#dddddd>One 9-year-old viewer who watched "Cars" last weekend had this response to my column seeking reaction to the popular animated movie:
I think they should add more female cars. Also I like pickup trucks and I did not see any pickup trucks.
Andy Meier, Livonia
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- end photo/facts --><!-- story text --><!-- story text -->Come home, Wolfgang Reitzle. All is forgiven.
Reitzle was the German engineer Ford hired to save Jaguar, then fired when he presented the company with the bill.
Pay me now or pay me later, they say, and it looks like Ford will be paying for this mistake for years. By refusing to make the big investment, Ford doomed itself to years of losses at Jaguar.
Reitzle joined Ford in 1999 to run the company's recently formed Premier Automotive Group, a conglomeration of Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Lincoln.
The luxury brands were Ford's newly acquired crown jewels. Reitzle, who cut his teeth as a wunderkind engineer at BMW, was the master craftsman brought on board to polish them.
Reitzle had the audacity to tell Ford the way to proceed -- to meet the corporate aim of boosting sales by hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually and building a global luxury powerhouse -- was to develop new vehicles with unique structures, engines and transmissions to compete with the best.
Ford balked at the price tag, rumored to have been $6 billion or so.
If that figure sounds familiar, it's what GM reportedly spent reinventing Cadillac over the last few years. GM's vision paid off. Cadillac sales are up; the brand is a serious competitor for the world's finest cars, and it appears to be making money.
Ford won't reveal how much Jaguar loses annually, but it has yet to turn a profit. At least one senior Ford executive has slipped up and referred to annual losses of $500 million.
Pay me now or pay me later. Ford has given up on its plan to build Jaguar into a full-line luxury brand selling several hundred thousand cars a year. Executives now hope for the day that Jag stops draining money from healthy brands like Volvo, Land Rover and Aston Martin.
Lincoln still appears to be lost in the woods, with less of a clue on how to get out than when Reitzle reigned. It was pulled out of PAG when Reitzle left in 2002 to run a German engineering firm, and its one new car since then is the Zephyr, a warmed-over and underpowered version of the Ford Fusion.
Reitzle's plan was expensive, but Ford had the money at the time, and judging by the dearth of good new cars in the United States from 1999-2004, the company wasn't spending it developing hot new models for the Ford brand.
There have been calls for Ford to sell Jaguar, although no credible theories about who would buy it and why.
The last person who did have a plan for Jaguar was Reitzle. Come home.
What should Ford do with Jaguar? Send me your ideas. Contact MARK PHELAN at 313-222-6731 or phelan@freepress.com (phelan@freepress.com).
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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BY MARK PHELAN
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
June 18, 2006
<!-- factboxes, main image --><!-- begin photo/facts --><TABLE cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=5 width=150 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=150 bgColor=#cccccc>'Cars' reaction </TD></TR><TR><TD width=150 bgColor=#dddddd>One 9-year-old viewer who watched "Cars" last weekend had this response to my column seeking reaction to the popular animated movie:
I think they should add more female cars. Also I like pickup trucks and I did not see any pickup trucks.
Andy Meier, Livonia
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- end photo/facts --><!-- story text --><!-- story text -->Come home, Wolfgang Reitzle. All is forgiven.
Reitzle was the German engineer Ford hired to save Jaguar, then fired when he presented the company with the bill.
Pay me now or pay me later, they say, and it looks like Ford will be paying for this mistake for years. By refusing to make the big investment, Ford doomed itself to years of losses at Jaguar.
Reitzle joined Ford in 1999 to run the company's recently formed Premier Automotive Group, a conglomeration of Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Lincoln.
The luxury brands were Ford's newly acquired crown jewels. Reitzle, who cut his teeth as a wunderkind engineer at BMW, was the master craftsman brought on board to polish them.
Reitzle had the audacity to tell Ford the way to proceed -- to meet the corporate aim of boosting sales by hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually and building a global luxury powerhouse -- was to develop new vehicles with unique structures, engines and transmissions to compete with the best.
Ford balked at the price tag, rumored to have been $6 billion or so.
If that figure sounds familiar, it's what GM reportedly spent reinventing Cadillac over the last few years. GM's vision paid off. Cadillac sales are up; the brand is a serious competitor for the world's finest cars, and it appears to be making money.
Ford won't reveal how much Jaguar loses annually, but it has yet to turn a profit. At least one senior Ford executive has slipped up and referred to annual losses of $500 million.
Pay me now or pay me later. Ford has given up on its plan to build Jaguar into a full-line luxury brand selling several hundred thousand cars a year. Executives now hope for the day that Jag stops draining money from healthy brands like Volvo, Land Rover and Aston Martin.
Lincoln still appears to be lost in the woods, with less of a clue on how to get out than when Reitzle reigned. It was pulled out of PAG when Reitzle left in 2002 to run a German engineering firm, and its one new car since then is the Zephyr, a warmed-over and underpowered version of the Ford Fusion.
Reitzle's plan was expensive, but Ford had the money at the time, and judging by the dearth of good new cars in the United States from 1999-2004, the company wasn't spending it developing hot new models for the Ford brand.
There have been calls for Ford to sell Jaguar, although no credible theories about who would buy it and why.
The last person who did have a plan for Jaguar was Reitzle. Come home.
What should Ford do with Jaguar? Send me your ideas. Contact MARK PHELAN at 313-222-6731 or phelan@freepress.com (phelan@freepress.com).
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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