Talk:Ford Motor Company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Ford Motor Company article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

	United States Portal This article is within the scope of the United States WikiProject. This project provides a central approach to United States-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

	Cars Portal This article is supported by Wikipedia Project Automobiles, a collective approach to creating a comprehensive guide to the world of Automobiles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you are encouraged to visit the project page, where you can contribute to the discussion.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

Archives Archive #1

Contents 1 Owned by General Motors? 2 Financial hurdles 3 Dispute over Sales Figures vs Toyota 4 Net Indicator 5 Bold Moves 6 AfD? 7 missing image 8 In both Australia and New Zealand, the Commodore and Falcon outsell all other cars 9 Wages 10 Gallery of Vintage Ford Motor Company Graphic Design 11 Criticism Section 12 An economy section 13 The Power Behind the Plants 14 Alphabet Cars 15 Built Ford Tough 16 Firestone and Ford tire controversy 17 This article in general 18 Split Proposal 18.1 Ford Motor Company and Ford (vehicles) 18.2 Ford Motor Company and History of Ford Motor Company 19 Model T 20 Use of flagicons in brands 21 Biased Comments 22 Aston Martin

[edit] Owned by General Motors?

The article states Ford Motor Company is owned by General Motors. This is news to me. When did this buy-out happen? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.155.32.6 (talk) 17:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

It's not owned by GM, I'm removing this. --Fr4gm0nk3y 18:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Financial hurdles

The last three paragraphs of this section don't seem to particularly represent a NPOV. Most of it seems to be simply slamming foreign manufacturers. A few sections in particular:

Paragraph 4: "Foreign manufacturers have used this to their advantage to generate the perception that their products 'hold value'. In fact, the consumer has saved money by purchasing the heavily incentivized domestically produced vehicle..." Seems like both are the opinion of the writer, and there is no source.

Paragraph 5: "[This has given Ford's] adversaries the opportunity to plant perceptions in the market place that foreign manufacturers [snip] deliver better value in terms of fuel economy, reliability, and build quality, when the reality is not close to the perception as evidenced the by strong sales of the 2005 Mustang." Planting perceptions sounds pretty malicious, and there is no source for the claim that the claimed planted perception is not true.

Paragraph 6: "Ford continues to respond to false perceptions. [lots of stuff about the economics of trade-ins]" Again, "false perceptions" without proof that they are false. The rest of the paragraph is more or less irrelevant to Ford's financial troubles.

I'm not even sure these three paragraphs belong in the "Financial hurdles" section, because they're not really financial problems as much as they are PR problems. I won't deny that a lot of the public perception problems that are facing Ford and GM are not entirely deserved at this point, but you also have to realise that they produced a lot of vehicles that had some serious problem in the last couple decades. Most of the problems may have been fixed, but those vehicles are still on the roads, breaking down with simply reinforces the perception of the vehicles being unreliable. It's hard to blame these so-called "planted" perceptions on foreign auto manufacturers.

I think these paragraphs should either be removed, or rewritten and moved to another section. Thoughts? --207.161.57.113 07:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - this article (along with the union commentary above on this talk page regarding Ford's strategy for survival and closure of certain US plants and opening of new plants outside the US) has getting far off target, in terms of neutral reporting, in the last month or two. T-dot keeps finding himself getting in trouble for being bold about reversions of nonsense and non-NPOV tripe, that keeps getting posted by persons with an agenda, who have turned the article into an editorial - especially the "Financial Hurdles" section. These posts are usually either against Ford "management" for closing US plants and opening production lines elsewhere, or against foreign automakers for "stealing" US jobs and returning the cash to Japan. Very non-neutral points of view. The whole article needs a good bold cleaning, removal of uncited claims, and a general awareness that the article should be about Ford and building cars - avoiding discussions of whether 9-11 or Fed Rate Hikes or bad management decisions put Ford into the current state of affairs. If a sentence or paragraph does not directly address Ford Motor Company as the prime subject, then it probably needs to go. Just my thoughts - But T-dot is not ready to go head to head (again) with the unionists and anti-globalists and Ford haters... --T-dot 15:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute over Sales Figures vs Toyota

Some editors recently added some highly controversial content regarding sales figures - including or excluding Mazda sales in Ford's, and whether Ford was #2 or #3 versus Toyota, which may or may not have included Daihatsu sales in its figures. No references or citations were provided for this, and an anonymous ediotor placed a {disputed} banner on the article. This is not acceptable for a Wikipedia article as important as this one. It seriously damages the reputation of the Wikipedia in the eyes of researchers and new visitors who may be unaware of the nature of the present discussion. I have removed the offending material as an emergency action as best as I can. Please do not add controversial sales figures into the introductory paragraph. Just the facts please, and lets discuss sales figures and methods for calculating them here. I intend to remove the {disputed} banner as soon as I can get "approval" from the one who posted it, or in a few hours if there are no objections. Thanks. --T-dot 09:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Be WP:BOLD. It's gone. -- KelleyCook 14:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Net Indicator

Someone should add a net indicator in the info box, in addition to the revenue indicator. The General Motors page has both a revenue and net indicator. I would add it but I don't know how to.

No problem ... done. It isn't hard to do this sort of thing. You can just go to the GM article, select "edit this page", select and copy the "net_income= ... " line from the GM article's infobox section, paste it into the corresponding infobox on the Ford "edit" page, and correct the numbers (if you know them) to match Ford's, and provide your source reference. All set now. --T-dot 21:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bold Moves

Shouldn't something about this page be mentioned?-Giant89 15:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD?

Railer 568 see talk placed an AfD on the main article as seen here. This user is claiming to be an administrator (see categories at bottom of user page) but has only been editing for 2 days as seen here. This is highly irregular. In addition, the justification for the AfD is given here as:

Flawed and biased article that lacks vital qualities for an entry on Wikipedia - also for the fact that it is the worst car company in the whole fucking world and there's no point to it deserving an article. --Railer 568 17:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I am going to assume that this is a "joke" and recommend "speedy keep", and some administrative disciplinary action for User:Railer 568. --T-dot 18:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Note - no sooner did I finish explaining my actions in reverting the AfD - that the User's page was cleared out, and he received an indefinite block [1] - so nevermind. --T-dot 18:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] missing image

Image:Ford2005CarLineUP Is neither a picture under any spelling I could imagine nor could I find the link to it in the source of the article to remove it. Can another pair of eyes look for it. A redlinked picture is not nice in the article. Agathoclea 22:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In both Australia and New Zealand, the Commodore and Falcon outsell all other cars

What does this mean? Best selling car in New Zealand is the Toyota Corolla, and in NZ Toyota outsells all other car manfacturers. See http://www.mta.org.nz/?id=1073&eid=435. Only when you add together a Ford Falcon and a GM Commodore, the Corolla is outsold. Since Ford and General Motors are different companies what is the logic here?

[edit] Wages

I think it would be interesting to restate the wages for assembly line workers ($5 / day in 1913) in current dollars ($103 in 2006), based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index inflation data.

Anyone know of a way of editing this so that it automatically updates? e.g. I'd like to add, in parentheses, "$XXX / day in current dollars," and have that value be valid next year, the year after, instead of just saying "$103 / day in 2006 dollars."

Thopper 14:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery of Vintage Ford Motor Company Graphic Design

I'd like to add this to the main article external links.

http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/gallery-view?start=0&span=1000&sort=B&op=AND&advertiser=FORD+MOTOR

Feel free to take a gander.--Mycroft.Holmes 01:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I still don't think that a link would be appropriate, however, as external content doesn't add to the article but takes readers away from it. It's your site, so assuming you own the copyright and/or it has expired, why don't you upload a few selected ads to the WikiCommons instead? Femto 11:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Section

I can't believe the company started by such an open advocate of Nazism did not have a criticism section! So I started one.

I wrote about union intimidation, allegations of collaboration with the Nazi regime, and allegations of collaboration with the Argentine military junta (very factual ones, if you ask me). Sadly, there's a lot more topics to add to this section, like outsourcing, low wages or the numerous incidents between the company and Mexican unions. If anybody knows about this subjects, expand plz. --Lobizón 21:50, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm looks like someone already beat me to removing the statement " Ford is also an ardent supporter of the homosexual agenda." Oh well 208.248.33.30 15:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An economy section

Is there an economy article or page?

Something that talks about fords economy over the ages and present economy. Potaaatos 13:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Power Behind the Plants

I've read through 90% of the Ford content and have yet to see anything regarding the Eastern Coal Company and it's contributions to Ford's assembly plants. At one point ECC was the only provider of coal for Ford's factorys. There is an immense history revolving around this Eastern Kentucky coal producer and it's relationship with Ford Motor Company.

Am I overlooking it?

So why don't you start writing about it? --Herne nz 00:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabet Cars

The First Vehicles

Henry Ford insisted that the company's future lay in the production of affordable cars for a mass market. 'Beginning in 1903, the company began using the first 19 letters of the alphabet to name new cars. In 1908, the Model T was born.' 19 years and 15 million Model T's later, Ford Motor Company was a giant industrial complex that spanned the globe. In 1925, Ford Motor Company acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, thus branching out into luxury cars, and in the 1930's, the Mercury division was created to establish a division centered on mid-priced cars. Ford Motor Company was growing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 136.2.1.153 (talk) 20:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Built Ford Tough

• It's one of Ford's most recognized and long-running ad campaigns, and there's NOTHING on the article about it. Why?? WizardDuck 21:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Firestone and Ford tire controversy

Firestone and Ford tire controversy was began in 2005. Since then, all mention of this controversy has disappeared from this article, except in the "see also" section. The Firestone and Ford tire controversy is a really bad article, with not one reference. I have suggested this article be remerged here.

We have found out that bridgestone employees have actively been editing both Firestone and Bridgestone, see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#flink.

Best wishes, Travb (talk) 10:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article in general

This article contains a lot of great content. However its drowned out. At the very least I would like to removed the timeline and the autoracing/motorsport sections to seperate articles. And suggestions/objections. Mark83 19:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split Proposal

[edit] Ford Motor Company and Ford (vehicles)

I propose to create a new article for "Ford (vehicles)" which will be for the Ford division. For two reasons, one the article size is 72KB which is well over the recommended limit. Secondly, is more aesthetic: though clearly an important piece, the Ford branded vehicles are not the sole purpose for the company, nor is it the only automotive division. In fact, the other seven automotive divisions of Ford Motor Company all have their own page, so Ford should also. I propose the article name "Ford (vehicles)" as the name of the division is Ford and their website is fordvehicles.com. So in line with the MOS, the page name should reflect those two items. -- KelleyCook 20:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all - the Lincoln and Mercury articles you mentioned are actually named Lincoln (automobile) and Mercury (automobile), not (vehicles) - so you want to call it Ford (automobile) for the Ford Brand, to be consistent with the others, and then link to the List of Ford vehicles page. Secondly, only a small portion of this article is actually devoted to specific Ford vehicles, so there is not much material to split off and move. That said, I do agree this article is far to large to be very useful. People have been expanding certain sections according to their POV. The vast majority of the article is devoted to the history of the company, and the worldwide operations, with sections about criticisms, etc. There might be some good cause to shorten the main article to some basic sectional summaries, with wiki-links to separate articles on topics such as the ubiquitous "Nazi/Hitler/Antisemitic connections", Union controversies, the corporate history, worldwide operations, and the General Corporate Timeline (where certain motivated editors keep adding non-sensical and non-notable launch dates and cancellations of their favorite vehicle lines indiscriminantly, along with the latest news updates, contrary to the intent (I created that section many months ago from the 100th anniversary book as a reliable source)). --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 23:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the article shouldn't be split into "Ford Motor Company" and "Ford (automobile)" or whatever, but into "Ford Motor Company" and "History of Ford Motor Company" Cavenba 19:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Split I was a lifelong Ford employe, a resident of Dearborn, and I'm a devoted Wiki fan and minor editor. I favor a split. The second article might be called Ford Products, to include the Ford Trimotor, byproducts of Rouge operations, and farm-related prodcuts. CoppBob 21:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. Do it now....--Herne nz 08:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am always hesitatant to support any split, espically splitting off controversial sections. Look what happened to the terrible #Firestone and Ford tire controversy article, which was originally split off from this article, then all reference to this article was completely deleted from this article.

Wal-Mart is probably the worst example of a split. From what I gather, two groups argued for months about creating a Wal-Mart controvery page. It was created Criticism_of_Wal-Mart, and now there are two competing articles: one within the Wal-Mart article, Wal-mart#Criticism and one with Criticism of Wal-Mart. These articles copy each other in content.

On the Firestone page, a probable sockpuppet of a Bridgestone employee, LucaZ (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) split off the Liberian controversy section into another new article. Travb (talk) 15:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

That is fine, but irrelevant, and should be handled at that article. Merging Ford/Firestone controversy will not help with WP:NPOV and conflicts of interest or whatever. The intent of splitting an article is to shorten an overlong article by providing secondary related pages which are mentioned in the main article as a sort of sectional stub. The intent of merging is to bring together two short articles which say essentially the same thing. The Walmart#Criticism article section should have just one or two short summary sentences describing the issues in the most basic and neutral way possible, and a link provided to the detailed Criticism of Walmart article. The same sort of thing can be done with Ford Motor Company: the overlong sections which are not particularly required to define "The Company" but are needed for additional information should be briefly mentioned under a Section Header, with a couple of sentences and a link to the detailed article. As to the Ford / Firestone controversy - again a section Header, a sentence or two, and a link to the detailed article. The Ford Motor Company article is already absurdly long. DO NOT MERGE the Ford / Firestone article into Ford Motor Company - this will just make the overlong problem worse, and is contra-indicated in the Manual of Style --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 18:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments User:T-dot, where does it mention splitting in Manual of Style? I can't find it.

In the Wikipedia:Summary style, it states:

"This page in a nutshell: When articles grow too long, longer sections should be spun off into their own articles and a several paragraph summary should be left in its place." (emphasis my own).

(Oops - that's what I meant. I thought the Wikipedia Summary Style article was part of the overall Wikipedia Manual of Style, and was in fact easily linked to it from the TOC - but apparently not. Probably should be though. It does show up in the Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles though, which is linked to within the MOS (and "is part of the Manual of Style"); and the rational for using Summary style is more clearly outlined there. Anyway I believe the "several paragraph summary" refers to a hypothetical single-topic article that has grown to pages and pages long; shortening it to a few key paragraphs outlining a summary, and sending the details elsewhere to "sub-topic" pages. By precedent, an overlong article such as this which has several major but totally independant topics of many paragraphs each, which together accumulate to several pages, can be similarly shortened with each topical section having just a few summary sentences, and with a "See xxx for more information" tag link to a separate article on the sub-topic. That way the main article does not seem to ramble on and on, requiring readers to scroll through many pages to get to the information they need. Also then the POV and other controversies can be taken "offline" to the subtopic pages rather than battled on the main page. Thanks. --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 15:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC))

I need to create a several paragraph summary of the Firestone and Ford tire controversy. There is no such summary now, at all in the article, this page was split, then all mention of the controversy disappeared from this article. Travb (talk) 14:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Good! Thats what we need. Maybe just a few sentences though rather than several paragraphs - unless the paragraphs are just a couple of sentences each. It is proper and encyclopedic to mention that there is/was an issue between Ford and Firestone over (allegedly) defective tires, improper inflation pressures, the propensity of Ford Explorers to roll over during emergency maneuvers or whatever, etc., and then send the interested reader to the full article for more information. We need to think in terms of someone outside who perhaps wasn't "around at the time" wanting to go back and understand the complex issues. They can get a quick summary at the Ford Motor Company (and Firestone) articles (should be mirrors of each other), and the fuller details at the main article on the controversy. In any case, we need to guard against either glossing over the matters of fact, by either the pro/anti Ford/Firestone POV folks, and also avoid over-sensationalizing the controversy like a rag sheet, both of which harm the Wikipedia and the unaware reader. Our goal should be to openly educate, not to persuade or indoctrinate. --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 16:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Go for it Potaaatos 01:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I find that there isn't enough information about the Ford brand in this article at all. Cavenba 20:49, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ford Motor Company and History of Ford Motor Company

I think the article shouldn't be split into "Ford Motor Company" and "Ford (automobile)" or whatever, but into "Ford Motor Company" and "History of Ford Motor Company" Cavenba 19:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

In continuation, I think I should be split into the said articles because The size of "History" is too large. Also the time line in unencyclopedic. Either the "History" section needs to be toned down or they should be split. Cavenba 20:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have made a rough page for "History of Ford Motor Company" at User:Cavenba/Sandbox/History of Ford Motor Company History of Ford Motor Company. Tell me what you think. Cavenba 01:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I like it. History is a major part of any article, and since Ford is one of the leaders in making the modern automobile, they have a lot of history. The timeline section seemed a bit cramped though. Maybe you could add sections like in the main article.

—Michael 04:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Model T

What do you think of expanding on model t? How many cars made, who bought it first, etc? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.251.50.163 (talk • contribs).

Thanks for the suggestion - but this should be covered at the Ford Model T article. Of course some brief notes of particularly strong interest on the topic of what is arguably one of the most significant vehicles in history that truly launched the Company into enormous success can be included in this article as part of the corporate history, but the significant details should be kept at the Ford Model T article for reference. That said - please feel free to Be Bold! and share your thoughts and suggestions and edits. You are always welcome to contribute here. If you mess up, there is always someone around who can assist you and fix any major blunders. Welcome aboard! --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 22:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I think there should be a decent sized section about the Alphabet Cars —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.100.214.39 (talk • contribs).

I think this article is way too big to think of adding sections right now Cavenba 20:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

OK fine - then please feel free to create a new article ... perhaps Ford Alphabet Vehicles?, and got to work on filling it in with the details and references. Sounds like a useful and notable article to me - tracking the Ford carlines from 1903 to the 1940's or whenever it was that the Model X theme was abandoned. There is probably even some material on this "way too big" article page that could be moved there. Just leave a link here saying something to the effect of "For more information on Ford's Alphabet-model cars, see Ford Alphabet Models" or whatever. By the way, someone else already started a Ford (vehicles) page, but it looks like the effort was abandoned - it is still basically a redirect back to this main article. --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 21:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It's the same for History of Ford Motor Company, but it redirects to the history section. Cavenba 01:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of flagicons in brands

I do not think these are necessary, as they will cause future conflict. I have deleted them for now. If you think they should be put a back up: post your reasons here. Cavenba^{talk to me} 23:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biased Comments

The opening paragraphs on the page contain baised, opinionated, immature, and slanderous comments. They should be removed and the person who wrote them should be restricted. See the highlighted areas in bold below:

Ford also recently purchased the Rover name (which is no longer in use) to keep others from using it to capitalize on Land Rover.for this reason ford is the worst vehicle on the road. this whole entire article is telling the truth except for every part.

Henry Ford's combination of highly efficient factories, highly paid workers, and low prices revolutionized manufacturing and came to be known around the world as Fordism by 1914.once apon a time there was a princes who loved ford. she changed her mind when she drove one of there cars. they are the worst handling vehicle on the road.

Even the grammar is spelling is wrong. Unbelievable.

Aarovex 05:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It's blantent vandalism... Cavenba^{talk to me} 19:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aston Martin

Aston Martin has been sold. Some one research and edit. :) Pautlorius 22:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Partially sold. Ford maintains a minority share interest in Aston Martin - approximately 8.3% ($77 million in "preferred stock", on a total valuation of $925 million). [2]. --T-dot (Talk | contribs) 13:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

i need to know all of the models made since 1980