Bullheaded Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 WHAAAAAAT!! This is like me and all my friends ending up with each others women, LOL. Let's think about this for a minute. (this is a highly simplified version, so before you nit-pick what I'm saying) Ford and International got together to make medium duty trucks and share engines. Then they had a falling out and split. So along comes VW to buy International, and Chev to team up to build new trucks to compete with Ford. Now Ford is back in the family? I'm confused, LOL. https://www.powernationtv.com/post/a-ford-volkswagen-alliance-could-be-confirmed-as-soon-as-next-week I wonder if this is really true? Anyone have any other details? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxidyne Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Other than Ford under Mulally's "one Ford" regime when Volvo, Rover, Jaguar, and Mazda were cut loose the automakers have been "sleeping around" for decades. Look at GM- the small cars have been sold to PSA, Isuzu provides diesels and the compact pickups, Nissan/Renault provides vans, the 4 cylinder diesels came from a deal with FIAT, and now International has hopped in bed with them to produce medium trucks. I feel sorry for folks who work in GM parts departments... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoadwayR Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 (edited) Major points, more or less in order: Ford and Navistar split for good over the 6.0L Powerstroke debacle. Navistar has a joint venture with GM for medium duty truck production, and assembly of GM's cut-away van chassis models. Likely more to come. Navistar has a relationship with Traton (formally VW's truck group) for diesel engines and other components sharing and parts procurement. Traton owns 17% of Navistar. Will Traton ever buy more or all of Navistar? Who knows. VW is spinning off their truck unit, now know as Traton. It will be a completely separate entity from VW cars, but VW Group will likely retain some ownership. GM sold off all European operations to Peugeot, including JV van production. GM is completely out of auto manufacturing in Europe (I think a good move). VW (cars) and Ford: Speculation on my part, but I think Ford wants out of auto manufacturing in Europe but not necessarily out of the European market. VW could conceivably make this happen by taking over Ford's manufacturing in Europe and with car platform sharing between Ford and VW. VW could get access to Ford's Transit van in Europe, and possibly the new Ranger in the U.S. and other markets. I do not see this deal having anything to do with larger commercial trucks, only the Ranger and Transit. VW is scary. It may well be the least efficient auto manufacture in the world. It has too many plants and too many employees for the number of vehicles it produces. In some respects it's a quasi-socialist organization owned and controlled to a large extent by the Government of Lower Saxony in Germany. I think VW will do whatever it takes to survive and would gladly sacrifice Ford to do so. I see this as potentially much worse than DaimlerChrysler. Will GM be the last U.S. owned auto manufacturer in a couple of years? Edited January 10, 2019 by RoadwayR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxidyne Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Both are public companies and the government share of VW Group is in no way a majority. Both companies are set up to give one family the majority of votes even though they own a minority of shares, those families being the Fords and the Porsches in the case of the VW Group. I can see some problems like making Ford and International play well together while honoring existing deals with GM and others. But there are huge synergies here with Ford able to help VW out with vans and pickups while VW can help Ford with cars. Then again, Volvo's acquisition of Renault and Mack looked like a good idea at the time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kscarbel2 Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 27 minutes ago, Maxidyne said: Both are public companies and the government share of VW Group is in no way a majority. Both companies are set up to give one family the majority of votes even though they own a minority of shares, those families being the Fords and the Porsches in the case of the VW Group. I can see some problems like making Ford and International play well together while honoring existing deals with GM and others. But there are huge synergies here with Ford able to help VW out with vans and pickups while VW can help Ford with cars. Then again, Volvo's acquisition of Renault and Mack looked like a good idea at the time... With VW, the Piech and Porsche families (whose histories are deeply tied to Hitler and the Nazi regime). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoadwayR Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 I don't see any need at all for Navistar and Ford to have any sort of relationship regardless of how far the Ford/VW agreement goes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.