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Suaviloquent

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Everything posted by Suaviloquent

  1. Suaviloquent
    Well, it's certainly function over form. I don't really like the way it looks, and I'll bunch it with other vehicles like the new Prius and Nissan Leaf for looking dopey. What matters most is the price and performance of intended function, if they deliver that, should be okay.
  2. Suaviloquent
    Ford did not do well in November. Mustang sales being down is a bit off. I would think the buzz created by the GT350 would mean more people would come in to check it out, and possibly leave in a lesser model due to sticker shock of inflated prices above MSRP.... A lot of the sales losses were buoyed by the dominance of the Ford vans. Like I said earlier about Lincoln... the MKC is losing steam because it just doesn't do enough things that are different and at the same time vastly superior to its Ford counter-part. It doesn't matter if its a relative bargain in its class, when you can sweeten the bargain by just getting the Ford. And speaking of bargain, why would the Escape be down? And the Edge just being up a few points? This was not a good showing by Ford. And seriously, with VW losing sales, you'd think a the way Ford is positioned in the market that they might get some sales their way... It's not all bad, Ford like many others have already exceeded previous year sales. But this isn't the running finish that Ford wanted.
  3. Suaviloquent
    First adopter of a no-sedan lineup? So they're going to be in theory a brand that has a strategy somewhat aligned to Jeep and Land Rover?
  4. Suaviloquent
    Okay, I have to say it's a pretty bad question being asked. There is a such a thing as product obsolescence at the end of a product cycle. No one is going to be paying more for a Z/28 than a GT350R. Answer is no one. MSRP is the manufacturer's suggested price, dealers can sell the Z.28 for lower, and FriskyDingo is a witness who can attest to reasons why because HE works in the dealership business. Why would a Z/28 have big discounts now? Uhh.. I can't explain such a simple thing. Please drop the question, it's going no where.
  5. Suaviloquent
    Ford is using engineered exclusivity to help dealers have massive mark-ups. Everyone should know that. Does it matter for pricing, honestly, if a Z/28 beats GT3s and GT-Rs and the Shelby by precedent is capable of doing the same... They're both still under-priced. But Z/28 for 50 to 60 large, that is exceptional value.
  6. Suaviloquent
    Alright guys cool down, chill like villains if you have to...
  7. Suaviloquent
    Indeed CP. But I think the Zeta being a paid-off platform meant that they didn't have to spread the fixed costs for its development on each unit of the Camaro in its later years. If the next Z/28 uses these same awesome components as well, it'll easily be the kind of vehicle people should be expected to pay a retail price of $100,000 or even more. I probably did use the wrong word "hella" does not really fit now that I look at it again. Good catch CP. Anyways, I'm guessing the Z/28 didn't have the impetus to break-even nearly as much as the GT350 with a new engine and new suspension technology for the first time used by Ford. I'll stop the profit banter now, as it's completely irrelevant as these are low-volume niche products... GM and Ford, make money meng. Make as much possible, crush it meng. (The unscrupulous businessperson in me salivates when companies make a profit and maximize it by charging an exorbitant market price for a truly quality product, easy-peasy lemon squeezy)
  8. Suaviloquent
    But here's the thing, the SS already dispatches the GT PP. I'm not sure if there is any incentive for GM to really under-price themselves. They could, and I feel should maximize their return on the Alpha Platform. Price it at the equilibrium where they get maximum profits, squeeze the living hell out of the margins and have a nice performance buffer that gives them the advantage for this entire generation. Either that or the Zeta Z/28 was hella profitable....
  9. Suaviloquent
    The difference is here is that GM didn't want to dumb down Alpha to make it worthwhile as a Camaro or a possible future SS sedan, instead, the imposed a regime of continued improvement onto Camaro for the sake of building up Cadillac. So, yes I think it's pretty believable given the production timelines and long development time of the platform that right around 2011/2 must have been when the Alpha Camaro was a go. It fits into the timeline of events, and that's the beauty of flexible architectures, you no longer compromise either vehicle, instead you get to amplify certain desirable attributes to match customer expectation and hence by exceeding them, give a sense of quality. Now, Lincoln will be getting D6 first. What that means to me is that Ford cars as they are now are not going to get clean-sheet redesigns until after the first Lincolns to come off that platform. So we'll see some new engines and transmissions hold the efficiency and power-train advancement front for Lincoln as well. No where the hell is the co-developed 9 speed. I swear, if the Continental still uses the 6F... and this 2017 MKZ, will be stuck with a 6 cog unit in an era where Buicks have all but caught up everywhere except that Lincoln has options of more powerful engines.
  10. Suaviloquent
    Happy Birthday!
  11. Suaviloquent
    Again, It's Ford sliding right into a market that Chevy has left. Pretty simple for them, exceed the Camaro in every way and deliver it for a lower MSRP. Plus I think they inflated the price because of the FPC. But they had to as well, it's a recent engine versus the LS7 which had already served duty for quite a while.
  12. Suaviloquent
    If it's a turd like the MKS then they'll be no need worry, Ford will butcher whoever was the internal sponsor for this vehicle. The 2 vehicles that I think best compete with this are the upcoming S90 sedan and the Cadillac XTS. It needs to be match for the S90 for an XTS price to be relevant. It needs to exceed the S90 for an XTS price to be the vanguard of the resurgence. The above need to happen while this vehicle at every trim just sizably undercuts the CT6.
  13. Suaviloquent
    What we have to remember is that these hard core models have never been about being state of the art. Again, they're more of just a hell of a convenience for people who don't have to end up modding their cars with the benefits of a production car engineering, build quality, signature car styling and a warranty. No need to retro-fit, you get the track machine straight from the manufacturer of the base car. So of course, what matters more is the platform underneath. I expect hi-po versions of the Alpha Camaro to be flawless when it comes to performance because of what Alpha is capable of, and possibly crushing the performance value quotient even further. Now, for Ford to pull a last gen style Chevy SS 1LE performance victory over the current Mustang GT PP; against the Alpha Camaro SS, will require an indomitable amount of effort during their mid-cycle in 2018. But there is only so much that can be done to a D2C chassis already stripped and reworked for whatever Ford thought was modern in 2011/2. Because that's what the Mustang really is today. Chevy has pulled ahead by 2-3 model years at the bare minimum now. For the Mustang, it's going to be a long wait now for a crack at redemption, possibly what CD6 might bring, while Chevy prepares its 2017/18 Camaro variants.
  14. Suaviloquent
    Well, we cast all the blame on mismanagement. It's just that some of us who wanted to subsume ourselves to Lincoln, who wanted to believe. I believed when the MKZ came out and it was spitting image of the concept. I said "Hey, great, atleast there is a cohesive styling, decent step forward" With the refresh, and how every single vehicle counterpart to Lincoln's newest model has fared better in reviews and how just little autonomy Lincoln has, I will believe that it's not butter. Remember that one, El K from the terrible old MT days?
  15. Suaviloquent
    Some of the track components that both cars have might be adding weight too, like beefier stuffs and whatnots and tyres and stuffs. Are both engines SAE rated? I would hesitate to say the Z/28 Camaro is 5 years old. It was such a transformation of the Zeta chassis, using MultiMatic DSSV parts, and I'd like to think it's almost a cross between an Alpha and Zeta chassis. Heck, the S550 is for the most part just a derivative of the S197. Even Ford decidedly did disclose that much. It's more like S197 2.0 Zeta 2.0 maybe? Anyways, I guess they approached the Z28 as what can we do to make a production car that probably is more akin to a standardized regime of adding excellent parts to transform the chassis? To me, it's almost as if it Chevrolet found the best aftermarket parts equivalents in terms of amazing noticeable improvements from suppliers, and just hammered way to make a track package that no one could possibly make without way more time and expense. The in-house engineering, testing and QA plus factory warranty is almost like a service that GM is doing onto an existing donor Camaro, except it's not. It's the way I understand it though. The GT350R is the exact same to me as well. I think the GT350R equipped as it was for $66k is pretty good. You do get a fresher and yet more livable and equally hard-core car. I couldn't care any more that the GT350R actually was better in the performance tests. They're both excellent, but the GT350 throws in a different kind of aural experience and is just more refined. The price isn't much ado, the dealer markups on the GT350R are ludicrous while the Z/28, you don't really have to worry as much about the extra expense.
  16. Suaviloquent
    Can you guys make a new thread for the GT350? Oh don't turn this into a trash-talk thread. Both engines are world-class.
  17. Suaviloquent
    Arrgh? Really Sauve? The loss that SMK is asking Ford to take, based off of his own criteria about it being nicer than a $90K Escalade, is beyond unreasonable because basically he thinks Ford/Lincoln should build this $80-90K Lincoln and sell it for $46K (sorry but his $10K loss claim would not meet the luxury criteria he made for this mystical Lincoln so). Sorry, but NO company has done that and a profit driven company like Ford sure as hell won't do that. The big fix for them is just making Lincoln more unique and given them something that Ford itself doesn't have. Again, the sell at a loss argument just won't fly with Ford, nor anyone else for that matter. Let me make it clear Suave, that I am not ragging on you here. Lincoln has issues beyond belief, despite what their fans may say but selling at a price loss is not the short term solution to a long term problem. Sorry, I meant the expression as the disgust of how I actually think of the Lincoln situation, not as a dismissal of your argument.
  18. Suaviloquent
    exclusive
  19. Suaviloquent
    Maybe the Terrain could use the short wheelbase Chi platform like the XT5. It's bit a bigger than the Delta used for crossovers, so it might fit GMC product differentiation targets from Chevy and Buick more. I'd like that even, because GMC then gets an Edge and Murano competitor, but more importantly it'll be sitting in an a more upmarket dealership. And two row midsize crossovers are all about the marginal increase in size over compact crossovers for a more than commensurate increase in price. And since there's little chance of a GMC competing against a Cadillac in the same showroom, I'd say it's totally worthwhile to consider this.
  20. Suaviloquent
    There are immense positive externalities to producing high volume, low-margin vehicles. Back at MT I used to criticize GM for forgetting the meat and potatoes when Corvettes and V Series Cadillacs were the best vehicles they could make and indicative of a firm that can have greatness baked in every vehicle it makes. Even looking at other makes. Toyota and now Hyundai/Kia entered the luxury realm only on the backs of their mass-market sales. When the economy tumbled, so did luxury sales and margins there. You're grossly oversimplifying the issue. Ford for a lack of better words survived by halting most of its new product launches until after the collapse as well. That's why you saw more product refreshes than anything before 2011. We can criticize Cadillac a few times for being behind the curve. That's about it. After that, we can only hope that Cadillac delivers the gravy on top of the meat and potatoes. Cadillac has a recent history of not leaving anything to hope or chance. Expect the gravy to be little at first, but I'm dead sure it'll go a long way. Judge them on their future potential based on current results, not current results due to past performance.
  21. Suaviloquent
    Arrgh. Surreal, I hate to say this, but Lincoln needs volume for its sedans. Its crossovers sell decently enough. Selling as a price or loss leader for sedans, it's just an option that has to be on the table. Swallowing your pride is sometimes the only way to move forward. Cadillac did so. Why can't Lincoln? But everything we've been hearing from Ford recently is that they simply do not give a damn about unit volumes, they care about margins. But it's not going to propel their half-baked product into greatness. That's okay when you're serving a cash cow segment that you already lead. But it won't get product out the door, especially when it's considered inferior by everyone. Everyone. The odd Chinese buyer will get the keys to a Lincoln due to the same sentimental values its brings to them that historic American brands enjoy in China. Anyone else in America, they're again, it's sentimental at this point. That's why an MKX with all the bells and whistles grazes $70,000. Let that sink in for a moment. There's a Volvo XC90 that does more with an even more "EcoBoost" in mentality engine and a finer interior and with a larger vehicle to boot. And it's priced less than $70,000 fully tilt. I will repeat how I was an unabashed Lincoln hopeful when the 2013 MKZ came out. I thought they would build on it. Instead we got 3 years of two stagnant product launches. No better or worse in terms of total vehicle concept and execution than the MKZ even though they were later model years. If they had done a complete showroom overhaul with simultaneous launches of the MKZ,C, and X in 2013 as the vehicles are now, I'd be less harsh than I am now. The Continental must either be a crazy hell of a vehicle and exclusive OR a concept at a production car price or a absolute price leader, and loss leader for the brand. It doesn't hurt to have it sell decently, because flagship sedan volumes have tumbled since the start of the millennium.
  22. Suaviloquent
    Ye DFelt, sometimes the drinking of the rational juice blinds us to our ambitions. There'll be another time and place in the future, where we'll able to 3D print our crowd-sourced cars with crowd-sourced manual transmissions.
  23. Suaviloquent
    To splurge or not to splurge? That is the question. An owner of a Bentley never asks that question. Well, what Bentley could have done, and might just do is dual-source the next clock (With a raunchy controversy similar to Chipgate for apple!!!). Surely another fabled watchmaker should have the capacity to produce 4 clocks a year worthy of being perched on a Bentley dashboard. And now my hideous laughter also applies just to the amount of attention this thread is getting.
  24. Suaviloquent
    That's the best scenario and Lincoln being rather out of touch with their recent product pricing isn't compelling me to think Lincoln is going to do what Lexus had to do to sell their LS.
  25. Suaviloquent
    Supply side if you want to be technical. Given they want to make/sell 5500 of these in the first year, the vehicles equipped with clocks is only 0.0727...% of the first year production run. Basically, the vehicles equipped with clocks for the entire product cycle, which means for the entire vehicle generation were already spoken for even before this press release. If I had the coin, why not? Why not spend 160k more for a vehicle that costs at base price 160k more than a base Range Rover. You can see my expression of hideous laughter, which by the way I love using pictures... hideous laughter.
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