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A few things i have been told:
1. Modernisation to the assembly plant was constrained by at least one factor, that the building simply wasnt suitable. It had roof support beams in awkward places.
2. Holden workers were paid well. When things were going well the unions pushed for better wages, and they acceded.
3. There may be contamination on the site and a cleanup bill could be huge.
4. Some of the machinery was very old.
Its interesting to look at the strategy differences between Holden and Ford over the last few years. Due to Ford dropping the V8 After the XE there was a whole generation that admired Holdens instead of Fords in the school playground. this translated to much greater sales at the tail end of production for Holden.
By accepting the inevitable and closing local production whilst still maintaining some local design input Ford has traded off 2 years of good sales of its local product for a Ranger that now in its second refresh must be something close to what the market wants as its selling like hotcakes. The Mustang also seems to be selling as many as they can import to cater for the V8 buyers who are probably at the point in their lives where the number of doors doesn't matter to them.
Holden did very well out of the end of production with a large number of its final vehicles being high margin "Hero" vehicles and it now finds itself a couple of years behind Ford with a lineup that is taking time to build up a market following.
For many years Australians bought 4 door sedans because they were the only option available, the market has completely splintered these days and most vehicles seem to be anything but a four door sedan. As JD said that's what really brought the Australian motor industry to an end. Ford did OK with the Territory but the diesel was years too late into production (another strategic error) and the petrol six was too expensive to run in a vehicle that size, tagging the Territory as "thirsty" in the punter's view.
The small volumes of cars meeting the four door, 4/5 seat market seem to be being supplied by Audi and Mercedes.
Having driven a few rental cars in the US in the mid 2000s to today I can say that the local Australian product was better handling, more refined and much more fun to drive than anything that the US produced in a 4 door sedan. The US Taurus was horrible and still had rear drum brakes, the Pontiac Grand Am I drove was pretty good but no better than a magna with a few tweaks. I drove a full size Chevy Malibu for a few days and it was simply horrible, two tons of Statesman sized car with the Buick V6 wheezing under the bonnet in a front wheel drive configuration. The last couple of rentals that I have had over there are better but they have been designs with a large amount of influence by the Japanese manufacturers. The Ford Explorer that we drove around the West coast in 2014 was an awesome vehicle and way superior to the Territory but that's another story.
Regards,
Tote
Regards,
Tote
Ford bought LR, learnt, then the Explorer made a quantumn leap, by my impression.
Well... the D3/4 chassis was a modified Explorer item so they would have at least learned their basic chassis' were rubbish. When you have to engineer a unitary body to put onto a donor chassis to make it work well enough... 'nuff said. [emoji14]Quote:
Originally Posted by rammypluge
Huh? Reference?Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscoClax
hat doenst sound correctQuote:
Originally Posted by DiscoClax
You are tripping me out in saying that. I have worked on an earlier explorer and was surprised how different the chassis and suspension was from jap and euro. I actually liked quite a few aspects, hated a couple. Now when i look at a D3/4 chassis, i see that the rear suspension is also 'simple' upper and lower wishbone, with an anti roll bar mounted above the chassis. Trying to get the rear anti roll bar off an explorer was too big a head ****. Does the disco have nuts with anti rotation tabs on them? [emoji6] I actually liked those.Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscoClax
Ford is used to building light truck chassis, where the focus is to avoid cracking, rather than maximise torsional rigidity.
The D3 arrived on the market after the current pajero, and yet had a less sophisticated rear suspension design.
First I've heard of this.Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscoClax
Who engineered a unitary body onto a donor chassis?
Learn something every day....
The only commonality between the Explorer and D3 was the 4.0 V6 engine.