Why not Aston Martin? There’s still many things Ford could learn from Volvo. Selling Volvo is not one them, IMO. :-/

Selling off the profitable brands is a good idea?

Why not give a group discount and lose all of PAG? you know, save $20 when you buy all 4?

Ford should not sell Volvo. It should consider pulling Volvo out of the North America market, badge these cars as Mercury or Lincoln- depending on the intended buyer- and keep the Volvo brand for all other markets.
The XC90 would be a great replacement for the Mountaineer, the S80 a great entry level Lincoln to compete with the Caddy CTS, the small 30 model a tiny Lincoln to compete with the MINI.

I fear that this may be the strongest sign that things are even more wrong that Ford is reporting. Things that have the most value go up for sale when companies are in the most trouble. This is likely a sign that a cash-strapped company, FoMoCo, is not expecting to get the cash they had planned/hoped for Jag/LR/AM and in turn, have to offer a more valuable asset to garner offers and the needed cash.

Look at Qwest when they sold their cash cow, QwestDex (their yellow pages), to keep their comms group afloat.

This is gravely concerning.

Out of all the foolish decisions that have been floating around about Ford and GM, this has got to be the dumbest. Loose Volvo and kiss that safety knowledge and experience goodbye…

Are they TRYING to destroy Ford Motor Co? With boneheaded moves like this, they’ll surely succeed.

Ford is done, stick a fork in them. Question is – will they go bankrupt or find a buyer? I hope for GM – they are well managed right now.

I think people would rather see Ford team up wih someone like Nissan/Renault before wishing for a buyout from their cross-town rival.

And GM management ain’t that hot either. There hasn’t been a shakeup, Lutz and Wagoner still exist and GM’s reliance on SUV’s is still driving the company. And a 100 thousand mile warranty doesn’t erase 35 years worth of crap overnight.

Then again, I’d rather see GM in the toilet before Ford Motors.

Jaguar: check
Aston Martin: check
Volvo: check

Land Rover: soon
Mazda: soon

Volvo is the only desirable car FoMoCo has(besides the Mustang). Why would you kill off a brand that makes high quality, god looking, safe, and partical cars? If Ford want to kill a brand, get rid of Land Rover and Mazda.

F-150: warm.
Fusion: warmer.
Mustang: hot.
Edge: red hot.
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Selling every Mercury in North America as a Ford rebadge: cold.
Crown Vic’ing the old Focus : colder.
Outright refusing to take it to the next level with North American versions of Mondeo, Falcon, ect.: ice-cold and insulting to boot.
Selling out Volvo : dude wtf. frozen extinct bugs from the cretaceous period do more thinking than this *right now*.
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Is this the same company? Why is Ford so completely hit or miss lately? There’s no gray area with these people. They either get it refreshingly right, or frighteningly wrong. Volvo is a large part of the reason why anyone is willing to make the case that Ford builds a safe cars today. Ford needs to have that image of safety to help rebuild their ailing reputation. Styling (or lack thereof) and questionable build quality/fit & finish are only part of the overall problem.

I’ve said it before: there is no problem an automotive company has that cannot be ultimately solved with the right product for sale. The man who sold me my Mazda3 earlier this year asked me why I selected the vehicle. I told him it was because the car fit my desired balance of my personal “4-Wheel” formula. The 4-wheel formula for building a successful automobile is an ample, yet balanced combination of dependable and athletic performance, value for the money (feature content, build & materials quality), safe protection (avoid a collision or survive one), and emotionally striking style inside and out. Taking out one of these rims will cause the car to crash before it’s built.

Ford must either be really desperate or profoundly stupid.

Sounds really desperate to me. Seems like they’re in deeper water than I thought previously.

Most of you missed the fast bus: VOLVO is over. It’s about as current a consumer brand as L.L.Bean or Lands End. It’s the Mercury or Buick of foreign cars. [It's funny: it always was the old foggies car in the UK]
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I’m an old Volvo customer – had three. My wife had a 740T wagon…my daughter a 760 sedan, but they’re old news. Other companies have decent seats and a better surburban image.. and safety has even been dicovered by brands like KIA. I looked at the V50 Wagon: cute but priced like a Gucci handbag. Sell it back to the Swedes for $1.

j i m

Yeah lanapat7… dont pull volvo out of the US market and rebadge them. that is an awful idea. I can name 10 moms with V70 wagons who wouldnt dare buy a lincoln or mercury even if they just slapped their name over the volvo sticker. Now the C30 on the other hand… too bad ford doesnt own the Yugo name.

Volvo isn’t necessarily over… but FoMoCo has done its utmost to murder the brand since acquiring it. Pre-acquisition Volvo was a niche/”boutique” brand with a limited lineup, great durability reputation, low sales and high margin. Now it’s a brand struggling to become mainstream and take on Merc and BMW with too many cars in the lineup, poor build quality, higher sales and lower margin.

In my area they’re currently doing a $399 fire-sale lease (or is it $299?) on the V-8 XC90. You NEVER saw Volvo doing fire sales before Ford got hold of them. But then there was never a corporate edit to double North American sales volume.

We own a post-Ford Volvo V70. It was expensive, the AWD is delicate and failure-prone, and overall build quality is terrible. It’s safe, but today there are LOTS of very safe cars. Never again.

The hell of it is, there’s still a lot of equity in the Volvo marque worldwide despite how Ford has screwed with it in the US. I agree with the previous poster who said this may be a sign of MUCH deeper trouble at Ford.

It’s like when Pan Am sold off its London Heathrow landing rights and its Pacific network in the late 1980s — the only aspects of the airline that made any money. You knew the end was coming and Pan Am was just buying time, hoping for a white knight.

I hope this doesn’t mean Ford is en route to becoming the Pan Am of the 21st century: an American icon covered in past glory, slowly rotting and dying under pressure from the global marketplace.

Seriously? Sell Volvo. How about killing Mercury and Lincoln first. I have never understood the fact that they sell three versions of the same car. Sell Jag, Land Rover and Aston Martin back to the brits as a group, or sell it as a Premium British Car Group. Surely SOMEONE wants these three marquee brands. Pair down your offerings by only producing a single version of models in the Euro market and the American market (euro focus, mondeo). If you must sell off Volvo (even though it is my understanding that most of Ford safety is now Volvo developed), sell it with Mazda and include the platforms that the Mazdas and the Volvos share, P1 I think.

What will Mark “Big Hair” Fields think up next?

This is all speculation by a magazine, not a statement from the company.

Land Rover is the only SUV maker that is seeing positive sales growth. We are on track this year to break last year’s sales record and last year’s sales were higher then the year before.

Last number I saw were that we were a handful of percent ahead of last year’s YTD sales.

what happend to volvo 4 life? lol

The new offerings from Volvo are actually exciting enough to give younger buyers a cheaper European alternative. A fully loaded AWD Turbo S40 is only $35K max in US which is a pretty decent deal. The upcoming C30 may be success as well if the pricing is right. To sell Volvo means Ford needs $ desperately.