Autocar UK – 14 August 2019

60 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 14 AUGUST 2019

our GT ‘halo’ car with models like the Mustang

Shelby GT500 we’re just launching. It has helped

us leverage Raptor – we’re using that with Ranger

now – along with our ST models, Fiesta and Focus,

Explorer and Edge.” Might ST extend to the new

Puma, we ask? “That would seem a good place to

look, but we’ve not decided,” he says. “ We’re very

objective about measuring the performance uplift

of ST mo de l s b e c au s e t he y h av e t o b e c r e d i ble .”

STREAMLINED AND STANDARDISED

Thai-Tang believes the reorganisation offers

‘streamlined development’, and the graduation to

five architectures is a big part of that. They are:

■ A unitary design for transverse front- or all-

wheel-drive applications, already used in the latest

European Focus and likely to be adopted for all

other C-segment Fords.

■ A unitary body for rear- or all-wheel-drive

models, already used in the new Explorer SUV and

likely to be adopted in other rear-drive models. The

next-generation Mustang seems an obvious target,

but there’s no confirmation. Farley and Thai-Tang

insist they don’t want any ‘orphan’ architectures.

■ A body for Transit-style commercials, whose

specifics are still under discussion following the

recent cooperative agreement with Volkswagen

The five-platform strategy

WHAT COULD YOU do with £21 billion? Plenty,

we’d wager, given that it’s enough to sustain a

small country or deliver a giant boost to a major

global automotive group. It’s the amount Ford

expects to save in the once-in-a-generation

operational overhaul it began earlier this year,

destined to continue into the mid-2020s.

This latest reorganisation is led by Jim Farley

(new businesses, technology and strategy

president), Hau Thai-Tang (global head of product

development and purchasing) and Kemal Curic

(c h ie f de si g ne r), w ho e x pl a i ne d it i n a n e xc lu si v e

meeting with Autocar in one of Dearborn’s inner

design sanctums. Two of the three men are well

known on our side of the Atlantic: Farley because

he was Ford’s European chief for several years,

Thai-Tang because in the early 1990s he was a

Newman-Haas IndyCar race engineer who worked

with Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti. Later at

Ford he was chief engineer of the 2005 Mustang.

Their changes began with a ruthless editing of

the kinds of vehicles Ford builds. While insisting

it won’t reduce its total number of models or duck

important price points, Ford shocked the industry

by ditching saloons in the US on grounds that they

just weren’t profitable.

“We want to compete where we have the most

confidence,” says Farley. “Our aim is to produce

incredible vehicles that are also affordable and

we’ll choose our ground to do that.”

The second bombshell is migrating its entire

portfolio onto just five ‘f lexible architectures’,

most of which are already in production or close to

it. In the early 2000s, before Alan Mulally’s ‘One

Ford’ reign, the company had an astonishing 30

platforms, which Mulally reduced to nine. Now

t he nu mb e r i s a l mo s t h a l v e d a ga i n , a nd t h at mov e

delivers a large slice of the projected savings.

“We learned a lot from Jim’s time in Europe,”

says Thai-Tang, “including just how competitive

the business had become and how the emotive

qualities of cars are valued by customers just as

much as the rational. That has helped us position

Farley (right)^

and Thai-Tang:^

leading change