Once you're done checking their balance sheets and quarterly profits, go check their financial obligations. Suddenly, you'll realize that they don't have nearly the resources that you seem to think they have. Ford has plenty of guts - it took a lot of guts to turn themselves around as they did. Ford also does have…
pauljones
pauljones
At this point, I'm not sure we are disagreeing so much; in fact, I think that we are very much in agreement.
This may be the textbook case for how to come to the correct conclusion for all the wrong reasons.
Hardigree knows.
True, the Germans have long since established that the market continues to be viable, but at the same time, they also maintained their image and built up brand cachet - something that Lincoln allowed to lapse for over 30 years. The German cars sell precisely because they have that cachet. Lincoln doesn't. To attempt…
I'm not sure you are understanding the general concept here. Sure, it would be nice to see a brand new RWD Lincoln flagship like the Continental Concept. But for all of the reasons that I explained quite thoroughly above, that's not going to happen. It can't happen. Ford doesn't have the resources, and, even if it…
Once a upon a time, during the Jurassic period, Lincoln was a premier luxury manufacturer that the rest of the world struggled to keep pace with. But in between the Jurassic period and today, the dark ages happened, and Lincoln (along with Cadillac) were allowed to lapse into mediocrity with kitschy land barges, while…
That is the first intelligent insight I've read in the comments to this post thus far. I'm glad someone has a clue; I'm kind of getting tired of all the morons who keep suggesting that Lincoln should just build a big flagship car off of the Mustang platform and that all they need to do is have RWD and blah, blah, blah.
STOP THE VANILLA HATE!!
Also, I love that Lotus Hot Wheels concept. That hourglass figure, them curves, them hips.... MMMMMMM.
The ultimate mind fuck? Number one of the list of the ten worst automotive renders?
Poor sequestered souls.
Yes, you gave me (and BMW) one example of someone who put his money where his mouth is and bought a new car with a manual transmission. One single, anecdotal example.
I'm also reasonably adept (by internet standards, at least) at separating concepts from each other, and also at applying logical thought.
Oddly, there are a bunch of unused, not-particularly-hard-at-work senators and congressional representatives sitting on their asses in DC on the taxpayer's dime, too.
If you're going to spell it out, metaphorically speaking, then at least get your metaphorical spelling right.
And so you, anecdotally, as an individual, are clearly representative of the automotive buying whole, and are thus proof positive that the numbers regarding manual take rates that are published by manufacturers are all part of some deep, dark Illuminati plot to steal our women and turn our cars into robots.
99% of them. And that's exactly why manual transmissions are becoming a rarity - because virtually none of the enthusiasts that constantly espouse their love of manuals in Shakespearean soliloquies are doing anything to actually buy them new and therefore keep the companies that they demand produce manuals in business.
And here's the difference - people who want grilles speak with their wallets and buy them. People that want manual transmission tend to talk out their asses, buy an auto, then sputter bullshit excuses about why they didn't put their money where their mouth is.