VOLVO CARS GOING CHINESE?

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Autoblog "3.0" is highlighting a Sunday Mail report that Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) is the leading contender for the hand of FoMoCo's Volvo Cars operation.

Dumping Volvo may be a political necessity for Ford at this juncture. While Ford has benefitted from Volvo's safety technology, Ford's ownership of Volvo has not always been best for both companies.

Ford has become overreliant on rehashing Volvo platforms. The worst example of this is the failed "D3" platform. D3 Fords, such as the Ford Five Hundred/Taurus, Freestyle/Taurus X, and Mercury Montego/Sable have been market flops. They were unable to accept Ford's designed-for-FWD Modular V8 (back when larger engines were in vogue) and earned a justified reputation for stodginess. Even the lauded 3.5 Duratec wasn't enough to rehabilitate their bland, "corrective shoe" market image. Huge advances by Honda, Nissan and Toyota in the U.S. market occurred during the "failed watch" of the D3s. The D3s were the wrong cars at the wrong time.

Had FoMoCo used a better, more exciting European formula (BMW comes to mind), perhaps things would have been different. Instead, all Ford really proved was that Americans don't want Volvos, even if reskinned as Fords.

Some would argue that Volvo's reputation has become tarnished under Ford. That is probably not fair because Volvo was ill-suited to independently compete for a larger share of the "Euro-sedan" market against the cutthroat Japanese and Germans.

Now that Volvo has become a money loser for FoMoCo, perhaps spinning it off for a few billion is a decent move. Selling Volvo would close the chapter on the "Premium Auto Group" strategy and would force Dearborn to get back to the task of making "World Class" Fords, Mercurys and Lincolns.