Another disturbing item is the discontinuation of the hatchback model. If what I have read in another article is true, hatchback sales are beginning to build up momentum. While this is happening, Ford drops a hatchback configuration from a model that has already established this configuration as an option in the market place. Why not continue to offer this configuration with the restyle?

All I can say about the restyle is that I hope it’s a short lived stop gap measure until Ford can offer the next generation European version on our shores. When you look at the 2008 U.S. version compared to the European version (especially the recently introduced version with the “kinetic design” update), it seems that the U.S. market is on the losing end of the deal. Ford’s European lineup reveals that Ford has the talent to offer competitive products in the marketplace. Let’s hope this talent makes its way over here before Ford gives up too much more market share to the competition.

Bunch of Freaks.

Dump the soap-bar pattern every car from Ford has to go through……the Taurus died a long time ago.

Let the designers rule, not commitees and engineers.

A kid can draw cooler cars than Ford produces, minus the Mustang.

The best focus group story I know comes from Ford, ironically. In the mid-1980s they put prototype Taurus sedans out to clinic. At the time the Taurus was a design revolution — jellybean smooth amid a bunch of knife-edged competitors — and the car got slammed. Some historically high number, like 65%, said they would NEVER consider the Taurus. It is to Ford’s credit that they BUILT THE CAR AS IS anyway and it was a massive hit. The company knew when to ignore focus input.

That’s the kind of “bold move” the company ought to be making today, but instead, we get dead-on-arrival efforts like the ’08 Focus… which will be totally ignored in the market.

Properly researching your target audience is a must in today’s competitive climate… you can’t leave it to guesswork. But design is also a high priority and leaving the details down to consumer opinion shows incredible weakness on the part of Ford’s marketing and design. They clearly have no confidence in their own abilities.

As the old adage goes, “A camel is a horse designed by committee.”

A styling “refresh” of an 8+ year old car is not the way to make it competitive. Every other vehicle in the segment the Focus “competes” in has already been revised, some more than once. Even the European Focus is two generations past what we have in North America.

You never took a college-level marketing course, I take it?

Rotman: Very scary comments…hard to tell if you are pushing some sarcasm, or are waiting for puberty to set in.

I would like the following:

-Plastic body kit, which color gradually changes when exposed to the sun
-Big aluminum (colored) spoiler
-Multi-color neon under the car
-4 exhaust pipes, not necessarily pointing in the same direction. Noise is the key word here.
-2-tone purple/orange interior
-95% tint all around
-22″ rims, nothing smaller.

That’s about it.

Kind regards,

Rotman.

I wanna see some interior shots though!

This is the sort of garbage you get when you call the from Wisconsin into the boardroom to get their advice on design. What a joke.