Ford to shorten vehicle life cycle
 

This is really good move for ford, I also think that this will mean no more this is year it comes out and next year it will get the new engine. Also the Taurus is coming out next year with significant changes, according to Mually this is the car we should of built before.

Link for life cycle: http://www.leftlanenews.com/ford-to-...platforms.html

Taurus: http://www.leftlanenews.com/ford-to-...next-year.html

Gee I wonder why the Taurus sales are slow, lets take a car that we can't sell and rename it. They did the same thing with the Winstar that we built, changed the name and the sales dropped like a stone. Yes I work at Ford Oakville assembly.

I hope this doesn't mean a shorted vehicle life span

sure it does. that is how car companies stay in business. Plastics. I see that come the future the framess of trucks will be made of space age super plastic. Look at the interior in every ford past 79 PLASTIC. comes with fading,rattles and breakage. the old 7.3 PSD would go 750K if well taking care of and the 6.0 will go 750miles of baby driving before blowinng a head gasket. Dodge use the most reliable diesel in a pickup from 89-98 then went downhill to the 24v with the vp44 (most needed new lift pumps under warrenty. because they did not sell enough repair parts.
Exaderated! Yes I know but my point is within. they build em cheaper and cheaper so they sell more cars. everyones game

It's not the individual vehicle's life that will be shortened, it's the body style that will be limited to three years.

If anything, they would use carbon fiber instead of plastics. (They might have to with the new CAFE standards.)

What I'm saying is, I hope ford doesn't reduce the lifespan of vehicles, because they will start pushing more body style updates faster, you know, to make people buy the latest things.

That's exactly what they're doing. This is not a new thing, BTW. Ford used to make big body style changes about every two years with their full-size cars:

1955-56 > 1957 > 1958-59 > 1960 > 1961-62 > 1963-64 > 1965-1967.....

I don't think any of the models you put together looked anything alike except the 55 & 56.

Now that I think about it, the '58 and '59 don't look anything alike. The '63 and '64 don't really either. D'oh!

I stand by the other groupings though:
1955-56 - Basically the same except for the grille and turn signal housings
1961-62 - Same fenders, hood, roofline, doors.
1965-67 - Lots of differences, but the average Joe will mostly notice the similar headlights and sharper body lines that these models share.

I worked on many and I don't see similarities except for the Ford emblem.

If you look at the full-size Fords in '61 and '62 (not the new for '62 Fairlane or the '61 Starliner which had the fastback roof) the front fenders are the same minus trim holes. The "boxtop" roof and the doors are the same, and the front bumper and hood are also the same. Obviously, the grille, quarter panels, tailights and rear bumper are different. (Although a '61 grille will fit a '62 and vice versa.)

As far as the '65-67 models go, yes there are a lot of differences, but they followed the same theme with the stacked headlights and horizontally divided grille. That's why I said the average Joe would call them similar. Of course a Ford person would know better. :-D

I think I've derailed this thread a bit. :-innocent

I liked that Ford Verve concept. That would be a great car for the wife when her Fusion gets more milage on it. Then the Fusion would go to my daughter who will be about driving age at the time.

So does this mean the Ranger might finally get a redesign? 93RangerXL (or whatever his name is) will no doubt touch himself while staring at a brochure for such a "beast".

Ranger got a fairly good redesign for 2008? no? Anyways, 08' is the last year for the ranger, because ford was to busy with the explorer to even bother doing anything to the ranger. Better engines, suspension, frame, payload, etc..Its been like the same since the 80s pretty much. So now ford is like "huh?" that ranger sales are falling.

I'm pretty sure it's much like the 09 F150. More of a "refresh" than a "redesign".