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Originally Posted by Polyal
Bingo....the xr8 formula is very simple. Sporty, powerful enough and at at right price. For all the flack the xr8 copped it still sold ok, mainly in part to what I believe was tradies with the ute.
I'm a solid believer in that the axing of the xr8, fairlane et al is squarely on Fords shoulders. You cannot expect the consumer to buy an inferior product, no matter how solid the engineering behind it is. The 5.4 GS did not set the scene on fire...it hung around like a bad smell.
I agree whole heartedly with Brent....but the XR8 should have an adaptation of the crate 5.0....nice and easy.
Also the engineering costs for the 5.0 is done on worst case, ie in GT guise, you don't need to "re engineer/comply" the GS on it's own.
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The crate motor causes them extra drama, using the supercharged motor would be a cheaper option as far as engineering goes, it would only come down to a tune, all the adr / crash testing would be covered because it would be the same engine configuration as the GT.. Similiar to how they worked it on GT / GS...
At the end of the day it probably would have cost FPV an extra 3 - 4 million to setup another tune, test it and roll it out... 3 - 4 million isn't alot of dough if it gives you an extra 1500 sales a year.. This would have meant they would have been able to spread the R & D over more units probably helping the RRP on GS and possibly having kept GT at FG 315 pricing.
They will be lucky to sell 700 GS/GT's in the first year of production, over 3 years that 40,000,000 of engineering is going to cost them $19,047 per car!! Thats alot of coin to recover on each car considering what the cars cost them to manufacture, if they outlayed $43,000,000 R&D and included XR8 with a yearly sales figure of 2200 units including XR8, GS, GT then over the 3 years it would cost them $6,515 per unit.. Ofcourse these figures are rough and don't look at finance costs etc, but it shows you that the XR8 even though it would have had extra costs associated would have reduced the overall R&D per vehicle by a large amount. I doubt FPV will recover what they have outlayed on GS / GT alone.. The cars only got 3 years in it...
This would have also allowed an extra 1500 units for Ford a year, which helps them with their R&D costs and market share.. 1500 units doesnt sound like much but when you consider they may only be lucky to sell 30,000 units for the year including ute and sedan, it still equates to 5%...
Lets face it people who bought XR8's arent buying XR6 Turbos or FPV's, they are down at Holden buying SS's and SS V's.... If i was buying a new ute tomorrow it would be an AFM SS.... I don't want a Turbo, never have and never will, but its hard to justify $51 kay for a GS thats identical to my 32 kay XR6 bar the engine and gearbox...