Territory's sucess - Page 2 - Ford Forums

chevypower · 11-01-2003, 22:47

Pitty the Territory doesnt have the length of the Falcon wagon, i read somewhere it was shorter than the sedan.... Hopefully they will put the length back in to it at facelift time.... or offer a LWB version of it...with a V8

ford.boy · 11-01-2003, 23:38

Shorter than the sedan? It's got a pretty large area bhind the back seats.. like you could park a semi in there if you wanted to.

chevypower · 11-01-2003, 23:48

Ehhhh??? you talking about Territory or Excursion? LOL

carazy · 11-02-2003, 20:46

yeah I love it I'll be buying my future wife one of those things on gas while I jet around in the EB.

Casper · 11-02-2003, 20:51

I also would like one as the family car. The big test is space though. Can it be a 7 seater and still have room for a pram and all the shopping? I hope so.

Mr Sparkle · 11-02-2003, 20:58

As the Old Timer has pointed out, price will be crucial to Territory's success. Also and equally important will be how it is marketed and advertised. If Ford doesn't want another Focus/Cougar/FTE/Mondeo on it's hands, it will REALLY TRULY have to pull its advertising finger out of it's financial ass.

They will need to spend Holden/Toyota money to get anywhere near the projected volumes IMO.

Having a brief look at its current competition, I think if it is priced close to the rumoured values, it should do alright. It should do very well against the competition for standard kit for the money, as well as performance and handling. Put it this way - if it is spec'd just like a Falcon, and is within $2000 more of the equivalent Falcon model, then it should be a hot ticket.

RAPTOR · 11-02-2003, 21:30

I'm planning on getting one as the replacement family chariot. As mentioned elsewhere the price better be on the money though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casper

I also would like one as the family car. The big test is space though. Can it be a 7 seater and still have room for a pram and all the shopping? I hope so.

Judging from what I saw at the SMS it should fit a pram and shopping in nicely behind the 3rd row seating (or in some of the 31-33 storage bins). I was quite surprised at how spacious it looked actually. It was up on turntable so I couldn't clamber all over it and check it out thoroughly.

The REX� system (Roof mounted DVD player) should keep the kids entertained too. My tribe want the Territory logo'd DVD and the fridge.

dave_au · 11-02-2003, 22:01

To recoupe the R&D expenditure of 500 million, assuming that 16000 or so Territories are sold per year, and that the lifespan of the model will be 5 years (100 million a year), Ford would require a profit of $6250 per vehicle above labour/materials just to cover this investment. Not to mention that there is probably interest being accrued.

As ford simply wouldnt want to break even, as everyone only does business for a profit, it would probably be better to hypothesise a falcon wagon; ad 3k for the territorys size and running gear, then ad on the $6250.

Its rather simplistic relating the R&D costs to 5 year amortisation, but as yet, I don't think there has been any indication for this system transferring to the sedan, and given balance of probabilities that this model may not be the success as hoped, I dont think you could reasonably argue that the recoupement time for this investment to extend beyond the average model life (5 years).

16000 was a figure used as it represents roughly how many x-trails and crv's Nissan and Honda (resp) shift out the door. It might be worth noting that sales for the Toyota Prado for Sept are 1325, hence 16000 sales for the new territory, I believe, is a fair estimate or sales in an enthusiastic market for the product.

That being said and done, I think we might find the territory to be 10K over the price of an equivalent trim in the falcon.

ford.boy · 11-02-2003, 23:31

but you are forgetting that the Territory's underpinnings will be reused in later stages of the falcon family, as will the technology used to make the thing. This will mean less cost for other models based on the product and more profit for then. For mine I can see Ford setting themselves up for the next ten years, as holden did a few years back with the VT.

dave_au · 11-03-2003, 01:39

That would be the case if development for the 4wd system was targetted at both the territory and the falcon. Otherwise the territory gets the burden. Its pretty hard to tell as I can only find consolidated accounts for Ford Global.

The matter still remains - they need to get 500 mil back just to cover the development costs over x amount of years- and they will have to factor that into their pricing.

Im not so sure they would want to overload the falcon with this debt if they are already carrying forward the costs of the BAs development - I really don't know what their accounting treatment is - they might expense R&D costs as incurred like their US parent.