Ford/Toyota merger?

Even if there was a merger, I don't think Toyota would be the one to redesign everything to look like a Toyota. You know what I mean? Ford cars have to retain a distinctly Ford image. And Ford has done just fine lately designing their new cars.

It would probably be more of a parts-sharing type of venture like so many other companies have done in the past.
 
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I agree

99SilverGT said:
Don't understand why some of you thing it would be such a horrible thing. I'm sure Ford's line would remain the same except for the build quality... Toyota's quality is insane. I wouldn't mind having a mustang with the build quality of a tacoma or corolla... if anyone would... I'm sorry, but you're an idiot. :nice:

I had a Tacoma 4cyl that I towed a 3500lb camper (it's max tow rating) with at 70mph down the road. That truck took anything I gave it!!!!! I took it off roading and didn't baby it one bit (it was a lease) and I couldn't tear it up (I tried). I traded it for an F150 and the first time I took it simi off roading, I tore up something in the 4wd transfer case. It was in the shop a month after I got it. The Toyota's really seem to take the abuse well.
 
Z28x said:
No, I thought it was 49%? Maybe more but not 100%

GM has 16% of Subaru, 100% of SAAB, and ~20% give or take of Isuzu (fuji) and Sizuki.

DC owns some of Mitsu and Huyndi.
Read my previous post, its 33% which is the controlling share of Mazda.

Actually GM has 20% of Subaru, They do own Saab, 49% of Isuzu and 20% of susuzki, plus 10% of fiat, 42% of daewoo

DC has 37% of Mitsu, and 10.5% of Hyundai which owns Kia.
 
03STEED said:
Toyota's quality isn't any better than any of the US manufacturers. The people that buy them just say that they are to make them not look so bad for buying plain, bland, slow, foreign vehicles...
you hit it right on the head!

I've ridden in a new maxima, new altima, new corolla, new camry, new accord... and the things have the same cheap plastic the fords do...

ride a lot worse than my stang and are quieter just because i have a vert!
 
I work for Toyota. If there is anything in the works, neither I or anyone I know has heard even a whisper about it.

Toyota is one of the most cash rich companies on the planet with cash reserves inexcess of two hundred billion dollars. If they wanted to, they could buy controlling interests in Ford and GM and still have cash left over. They wouldn't "merge", they would buy outright, like Ford did to Jaguar. That said, they would have no reason to do so. They already have one of the best selling cars in the world and have just taken over the lead in compact truck sales from Ranger this week. They have a huge dealer network and a dealer in every town. What's the need for buying another giant company that has a recent history of losing money and dropping stock price.

I too raise the BS flag.
 
jadesville said:
Read my previous post, its 33% which is the controlling share of Mazda.

Actually GM has 20% of Subaru, They do own Saab, 49% of Isuzu and 20% of susuzki, plus 10% of fiat, 42% of daewoo

DC has 37% of Mitsu, and 10.5% of Hyundai which owns Kia.

wow, where are you getting all these number from? i believe you, i'm just wondering i can find out that stuff.
 
One thing that people forget is that one of the reasons ford has been loosing money is that they havent released very many new models for along time. Ford is just about to do just that. As far as quality goes yes Toyota is top notch in quality but they will have thier day, they all do. All it is gonna take is a few people at the top leaving and going to a different company or retiring. And as for Fords quality come on they arn't that bad when you step back and compare them make for make. Sure, Land Rover & Jaguar drags all of Ford down quality wise and finacially.

Can you show where you get the 200 Biliion from. Looking at these press release I can't find comparative earnings from Toyota, It's a little confusing in Yen.
 
XtorT'r said:
One thing that people forget is that one of the reasons ford has been loosing money is that they havent released very many new models for along time. Ford is just about to do just that. As far as quality goes yes Toyota is top notch in quality but they will have thier day, they all do. All it is gonna take is a few people at the top leaving and going to a different company or retiring. And as for Fords quality come on they arn't that bad when you step back and compare them make for make. Sure, Land Rover & Jaguar drags all of Ford down quality wise and finacially.

Can you show where you get the 200 Biliion from. Looking at these press release I can't find comparative earnings from Toyota, It's a little confusing in Yen.
You do know that Ford dramatically increased Jaguars quality right?
 
look at the 5 year stock movement for Ford and Toyota... very similar. I personnally think Ford is going to step up to the plate. If you look at the lines they have to do something with Lincoln and Mercury as well.. Both are starting to flop
 
jadesville said:
Here's some links so you guys can get some info..

Toyota:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TM
Ford:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=F

Crap, I can't do a good job decifering that info. I need to see it writen out in press releases. that looks more like daily info. It looks like Toyota has alot less stock for a lot more $ per share and Ford te exact opposite. So how the heck can you tell overall company worth from that..? bleh :shrug:
 
Here ya go

Hey, did you hear the one about Ford and Toyota? No way
Internet rumors breed angst, PR headaches
The Detroit News 09/03/2004
Author: Daniel Howes

(Copyright 2004)


Today's the day Toyota Motor Corp. is supposed to announce plans to buy Ford Motor Co.

Or buy 20 percent of Ford.

Or buy Ford of Europe.

Or buy Ford's Wixom Assembly plant.

Or take a 45 percent stake in Visteon, Ford's once-and-former supplier.

But none of these are true, both companies say emphatically. Like the Orson Wells-concocted "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast that panicked a nation, the Internet-fueled Toyota takeover rumor mill has rattled many who care about Ford, the auto industry and the future of Detroit.

From assembly line hands and white-collar engineers to Ford retirees and big-time auto dealers, the back channels are buzzing with, "Have you heard ...?"

Maybe it started with an innocuous (but, in retrospect, sinister) question, posted 3:33 a.m. Aug. 24 on www.blueovalnews.com's message board. It asked, "Any idea as to what the big announcement is going to be about?" The avalanche of speculation keeps coming.

Maybe fears grew when line workers heard something "big" was coming, and the big thing turned out to be the late-year production cuts announced Wednesday.

But by the time Ford (and GM) confirmed the cutbacks, the chatterers had embellished their line with talk of a special Ford board meeting this week that didn't happen because it didn't need to.

Maybe it's all this recent talk about Toyota looking for land to expand its technical center in Washtenaw County. Or that Gov. Jennifer Granholm is pushing the Legislature to make sure Toyota gets the land it wants, so she can claim credit for landing hundreds of next-century auto jobs.

Or maybe the metastasizing rumors are evidence of Detroit's anxiety about a creeping foreign domination of its hometown industry. Combine that with too many people with too much time using the power and pervasiveness of the Internet to spout off and what you get is a lot of half-cocked blather that doesn't pass the "does-it-make-sense" test.

Ford says -- repeatedly, but not for attribution, because it doesn't want to acknowledge the rumors by responding to them -- that there's nothing to any of this. Yet the rumors grew so intense as the week passed that by Wednesday the company published a story on its internal Web site headlined, "Growing Use of Internet Publishing Brings New Challenges to Business."

"Thanks -- and sometimes, no thanks -- to the Internet, everyone's a publisher now," the internal article said. "And that's creating new challenges for companies like Ford, political campaigns and anyone else in the public eye.

"The disadvantage of the Internet is that rumors can be published electronically that don't pass anyone's journalistic standard. Such rumors can proliferate rapidly and create headaches for those who are charged with managing the news."

Ford should know, given the cultural propensity of some inside for trafficking in farfetched rumors when their time would be better spent focusing on building better cars and trucks.

Toyota dismisses the takeover talk with a generic strategy statement and a hint of bemusement. Japan's No. 1 automaker has no intention "to acquire another auto company," according to a Toyota spokesman in New York. "Our intention is to work from the ground up."

For evidence of the contention, look around -- in the United States, in Canada, in Britain, France and in eastern Europe.

Toyota doesn't acquire auto companies or brands, it creates them (think Lexus and Scion), or it crafts limited joint ventures with rivals (think the engine deal with PSA-Peugeot in the Czech Republic or the NUMMI plant partnership with General Motors in California).

Toyota doesn't buy old auto plants in the UAW stronghold of Metro Detroit. It builds new, state-of-the-art plants in the fields of Indiana, the valleys of West Virginia and the arid hills outside San Antonio. And it recruits new, younger workforces untainted by the old habits of the UAW.

Toyota has made, oh, about $18 billion in net profits over just the past two years (roughly 80 percent of it from American wallets). Its market share is growing in the rich U.S. market, growing in Europe and playing catch-up, Toyota-style, in China. What would it gain by owning any piece of Ford, aside from a furious political backlash and the mother of all culture clashes?

None of this, however, seems to register with the rumormongers. Why should it when the fun apparently is in spreading the rumor and making people squirm -- like the 31-year-old mother who works at Ford's Dearborn Truck plant and signed her e-mail to me, "The Worried Worker."

"Rumors are flying everywhere about a Ford-Toyota or a Ford-Honda merger," she wrote. "It would be devastating to the Motor City."

Yes, it would. But it doesn't account for why Toyota does what it does so well and it doesn't account for Ford Chairman Bill Ford Jr., the Ford Family, its controlling stake in Henry Ford's auto company and the family's commitment to keeping Ford independent -- until further notice.

This is a chairman whose corporate cash hoard is roughly $26 billion and who would sooner burn down the Glass House than sell it to Toyota or Honda or, God forbid, General Motors. This is a family that still takes its responsibility to its home and its employees seriously, even if others don't.