How Many Car Guys Are @ Ford?

Many corporations are not about product, but finance and marketing. A polished turd is preferable to a good product because if they can sell a polished turd, it's greater margin.

The CEO is too high to do that. The people defending product are in my experience are not often higher than 'lead engineer' or 'project engineer'. The higher one goes, the more it's about politics, spin, financials, and not product. There are countless layers of management between the product guys and the CEO. The CEO doesn't even know who the people that focus on product are. Unless he goes down deep and gets his hands dirty he's not going to know them.

Engineers that focus on product are not promoted. They cannot be lost to management else no work would ever get done. They are also isolated from media for good reason, they tell the truth. They aren't good at lying or spinning. If something is crap, they'll likely say it.

Yep... that's typical.

Remember, the original taurus was a bold departure from typical reality. In desperate times there are desperate measures and one of those allowed the taurus to come into being. If ford had not been desperate, you would have seen something that looked a lot like fairmont or maybe a (nonfox) LTD...

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I'll say... The LAST guy you bring in to give guys the 'permission to be bold" would be from Boeing!

Airbus has been 'bold'... and they have got themselves into trouble for it. Recent crashes {most spectacular in Russia, where Autopilot PARTIALLY , but not completely, disengaged} have been due to shortened training schedules for pilots.. brought on to match training sched with deliveries.

Boeing, after the wiring problems and seeing what happened to McD Douglas has been far from bold.