Drugs in the tea urn? Who signed off on this shite?

[cort16]

You can kind of see the logic behind the Puma and the Tigra though. Pretty easy to knock out a couple of coupes based on existing hatchback and call it a lifestyle choice.

 

The 1007 however is just a shit idea that I bet they all wanked themselves silly over in the board room before it was generally decided it was a bad idea after no one bought one.

I bet they all pointed at Pierre and said "it was his idea". Pierre would have just shrugged his shoulders and went back to his next job of designing the Peugeot 308.

[oman5]

I must admit I rather like the P76. An antipodean take on the early '70s yank tank, I find it very easy on the eye and it has a nice 4.4 rover V8 too.

[Shep Shepherd]

The Volvo 262C. Conceived by the then CEO of Volvo Cars when he was off his head on Absolut Vodka. Probably:

 

 

At least manufacturing it kept Bertone busy for a few years.

[CortinaDave]

The Ford Probe. Lets bring ourselves back into a market segment we deserted six or seven years ago, but lets not use the highly successful Capri name - instead - lets name it after something you get shoved up your arse.

 

Lets build a car with styling to appeal to young blokes who're really into their cars, but make it utterly dismal and underpowered to drive.

 

Yeah, that'll sell.

[Vince70]

Talk about running out of ideas..

Why would you design a two seater version of an existing car that has 4 seats but looks exactly the same.

 

I'm not saying its a bad looking motor and is most probably a nice car to drive on a non pot holed road if there's such a thing but why would anyone buy it and have mini actually sold any.

Also what pees me off is why call this thing a mini.

It should be called the new Maxi (but obviously less practical)

[Shep Shepherd]

^

 

Pointless cars for pointless sheeple.

[holbeck]

im sorry I have to correct you the sierra wasn't all Cortina running gear yes the 1.6 and 2 litre engines were pinto but you could also get 1.8 cvh  but only until 89 everything else was different the gearbox was the type 9 5 speed till they put the twin cam in then it was the mt 75 the front suspension was strut and the rear was fully independent

 

<<Anorak on>>

Sierra pre '89 was fitted with  a 1.8 pinto not CVH.

The North American sourced 1.8 iCVH engine was fitted post '89

 

<<Anorak off>>

[brickwall]

I was beaten to it, but the Probe. The Ford Probe. Why? The design brief was to resurrect the Capri, I mean...ffs

[New POD]

Bonjour mes Ami. Our German and Rosbiff competitors have taken a wrong turning with their 'ow you say? Retro design.

Our expert researchers de market have discovered this is a rue de mort.

They will never sell any of these

image.jpg

It's kind of a shame that they had to facelift it twice. Generation 1 (as per this picture) is so much nicer. The detailing of the vents both on the scuttle and the side wing are so much nicer. Plus the lack of gap around the front lights is nicer, (although a pain to adjust the light height as you have to open the bonnet and point the lights at a tree.

[Asimo]

http://www.renault.co.uk/cars/electric-vehicles/twizy/twizy/

[Ghosty]

Juke.

Most other crossovers.

100% electric Renaults.

Renault Twizy. 

Smarts.

Fiat 500L.

The New Beetle.

Five-door Mini.

Renaming the coupé BMWs to 2 and 4 for no reason.

Four door BMW 6 series.

3 and 5 series GT.

The BMW i3.

Focus convertible.

[Vince70]

The very minimum that the probe should of got was a name change to Capri which would of doubled sales plus if ford had made a special edition which had injection stripes fishnet recaros plus a set of pepper pots it would of helped sell a load more.

 

I drove one a couple of years back which a friend offered to me for £200, it wasn't really a bad car and believe it shared a lot of DNA with the MX6 second generation which looked a lot nicer.

 

 

I think the probe just looked way to American for our tastes and should of just rebadged the Mazda

[laser wheels]

I read there was nothing massively wrong with the Pinto, and that it just got in the crossfire of Ralph Nader because he focused on that Ford cost cutting exercise. It was involved in as many car fires as every other car in America at the time. It's weird how bad publicity sticks and gets mutated over time.

The bolts on the differential punctured the fuel tank - the fix would be to put covers over the bolts.

 

The City Rover had a cheap aftermarket stereo cut into the dashboard, complete with the horrible LED/plastic that comes with them.

 

I thought the real stink was more to do with the fact that Ford new they were killing people but decided it was cheaper to pay out for the lawsuits than actually change the design?

 

That could just be urban legend bollocks, though.

[Asimo]

I thought the real stink was more to do with the fact that Ford new they were killing people but decided it was cheaper to pay out for the lawsuits than actually change the design?

 

That could just be urban legend bollocks, though.

This really happened. Many legal texts refer to it.

 

 

F. Ford's Risk/Benefit Analysis

The main controversy surrounding the Ford Pinto case was The Ford Motor Company's choices made during development to compromise safety for efficiency and profit maximization. More specifically, it was Ford's decision to use the cost/benefit analysis detailed in section 11 to make production decisions that translated into lost lives. During the initial production and testing phase, Ford set "limits for 2000" for the Pinto. That meant the car was not to exceed $2000 in cost or 2000 pounds in weight. This set tough limitations on the production team. After the basic design was complete, crash testing was begun. The results of crash testing revealed that when struck from the rear at speeds of 31 miles per hour or above, the Pinto's gas tank ruptured. The tank was positioned according to the industry standard at the time (between the rear bumper and the rear axle), but studs protruding from the rear axle would puncture the gas tank. Upon impact, the fuel filler neck would break, resulting in spilled gasoline. The Pinto basically turned into a death trap. Ford crash tested a total of eleven automobiles and eight resulted in potentially catastrophic situations. The only three that survived had their gas tanks modified prior to testing.⁵⁵

Ford was not in violation of the law in any way and had to make the decision whether to incur a cost to fix the obvious problem internally. There were several options for fuel system redesign. The option most seriously considered would have cost the Ford Motor Company and additional $11 per vehicle.⁵⁶   Under the strict $2000 budget restriction, even this nominal cost seemed large. In addition, Ford had earlier based an advertising campaign on safety which failed miserably. Therefore, there was a corporate belief, attributed to Lee Iacocca himself, of "safety doesn't sell."⁵⁷

Ultimately, the Ford Motor Company rejected the product design change. This was based on the cost-benefit analysis performed by Ford (see Exhibit One). Using the NHTSA provided figure of $200,000 for the "cost to society" for each estimated fatality, and $11 for the production cost per vehicle, the analysis seemed straightforward. The projected costs to the company for design production change were $137 million compared to the project benefits of making the design change which were approximately $49.5 million. Using the standard cost/benefit analysis, the answer was obvious--no production changes were to be made.

[Junkman]

I thought the real stink was more to do with the fact that Ford new they were killing people but decided it was cheaper to pay out for the lawsuits than actually change the design?

 

That could just be urban legend bollocks, though.

 

Not urban legend, and not restricted to the Pinto, or even Ford. This is common practice in the automotive industry to this day.

It's profit first, not safety first, as they claim in their ads, see the current GM ignition lock scandal.

In the US, they really overdid it, and it is this what culminated in the 'Horsepower Race', which led to the 'Muscle Cars' of the late 60s,

which triggered federal legislation to crack down on it. The US guffament didn't do this to annoy the car industry, they did it

because young men required to be killed in Vietnam died like flies in traffic accidents.

No governing legislation exists elsewhere in the world, and you can see this in cover-ups of deadly defects and delayed recalls

on a regular basis.

Actually, the whole thing is a lot more convoluted and fascist, but this is it in a nutshell.

[Norbert]

Not urban legend, and not restricted to the Pinto, or even Ford.

 Indeed - for the GM equivalent, see the infamous Ivey memo:

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/apr/30/business/fi-57496

 

.