What do Mustang and Camaro have in common?

[kscarbel2]

Automotive News  /  June 27, 2016

Soon, a transmission, thanks to new era of collaboration

It's like the Hatfields swapping recipes with the McCoys. Or Michigan and Ohio State drawing up plays together.

Starting next year, the Chevrolet Camaro will share a transmission with the Ford Mustang.

Cross-town collaboration between General Motors and Ford Motor Co. was once unfathomable. But cost cutting, engineer shortages and increasing regulations made it inevitable.

"It is surprising," said Gale Halderman, the Ford designer responsible for the exterior of the first Mustang. "Back in my time, we couldn't even talk to anybody from GM."

Detroit's pony-car war has been raging for half a century now. In recent years, Ford and GM have worked together on a number of projects, including six-speed transmissions used in the Ford Fusion, Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Escape and Chevy Equinox. But none of those vehicles stirs up emotions like a Mustang's full-throated roar or a Camaro's smooth purr.

The 2017 Camaro ZL1 is the first of eight vehicles slated to get GM's 10-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmission. Some versions of the Mustang are expected to get the same gearbox for 2018. A screenshot from Ford's dealership parts-lookup system, posted on the website Mustang6G.com last week, all but confirmed longstanding rumors that the Mustang was in line for a 10-speed automatic. (A Ford spokesman declined to discuss its future product plans.)

That transmission and a nine-speed automatic for front-wheel-drive vehicles were jointly developed by Ford and GM under a partnership they started in 2013. Ford has said the 10-speed will be offered in the 2017 F-150 this fall, and GM is expected to put it on full-size pickups next year. 

But that's not to say customers would ever notice any similarities between the Camaro and Mustang or the F-150 and Chevy Silverado. Even though some internal components are identical, the two companies will build, integrate, program and tune their transmissions independently. 

"We will each use our own control software to ensure that each transmission is carefully matched to the individual, brand-specific vehicle DNA for each company," Craig Renneker, Ford's chief engineer of transmission and driveline components and pre-program engineering, said when the automakers announced their 2013 deal. 

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne, in a manifesto last year advocating for industry consolidation, complained that up to half of a vehicle's development cost is spent on proprietary components that are "not discernible to customers." 

Devin Lindsay, a powertrain engineer with IHS Automotive, said the huge capital costs of today's industry make working together a necessity. 

"You look at the overall cost, and why duplicate that?" he said. "Imagine the amount of time it frees up at the engineering level. That allows them to use resources in other areas. You may want to collaborate on some things, but there are others that are more of the secret sauce that differentiates you with the buyer." 

And expect the sales race between the Mustang and Camaro to be as intense as ever. The Camaro was the top seller between the two in the U.S. from 2010 through 2014, but five months into 2016, the Mustang was on track to pull out a win for the second year in a row.

 

[mowerman]

interesting thanks for sharing...bob

[kscarbel2]

Ford Shuts Mustang Factory for One Week After Sales Plunge 32%

Bloomberg  /  October 10, 2016

Ford Motor Co. is shutting its Mustang factory in Michigan for a week after the iconic sports car suffered a 32 percent sales decline in the U.S. last month and was outsold by the Chevrolet Camaro for the first time in almost two years.

The second-largest U.S. automaker idled the factory in Flat Rock, south of Detroit, to match production capacity with demand, Kelli Felker, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. The plant, which employs 3,702 workers and makes Mustangs and Lincoln Continentals, will resume production Oct. 17, Felker said. Under the automaker’s labor agreement, workers will be paid during the shutdown.

The idling may be a sign of the growing weakness of the U.S. auto market, which had been a leading driver of economic growth. Automakers’ monthly sales have been coming up short -- though they beat expectations in September -- and many analysts are now predicting the U.S. auto industry won’t match last year’s record of 17.5 million cars and light trucks.

Mustang, which is among Ford’s most storied nameplates, received a racy redesign two years ago on the car’s 50th anniversary. That new look helped propel the Mustang past the Camaro in 2015 to regain its title as the top-selling sports car in America, which it had held for decades before General Motors Co. redesigned the Camaro in 2010.

Camaro Gains

Camaro overtook Mustang last month for the first time since October 2014 on the strength of incentives that more than tripled last month to $3,409 per car, compared with an average discount of $2,602 on the Ford pony car, according to data from researcher J.D. Power obtained by Bloomberg.

“In terms of incentives, we’re always going to be disciplined, but we’ll be competitive as well,” Erich Merkle, Ford’s sales analyst, said in an interview.

Ford has sold 87,258 Mustangs in the U.S. this year, down 9.3 percent, while GM had Camaro sales of 54,535, off 11 percent, according to researcher Autodata Corp. Ford Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields has said the U.S. auto market has plateaued and that showroom sales are weakening.

Going Global

Ford began selling Mustang globally last year, and the factory produces versions with the steering wheel on both sides of the dashboard for right-drive and left-drive markets, Merkle said.

Production of the Continental is still increasing at the Flat Rock factory, Felker said. The automaker sold just 775 copies of Lincoln’s new flagship sedan last month, its first sales since the automaker discontinued the car in 2002.

Until February, Ford also built the Fusion family sedan in Flat Rock. But as sales for that model flagged, the automaker consolidated production of the Fusion at it primary plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, Felker said. Fusion sales have fallen 9.1 percent this year to 210,462 models.

With a slowing market for cars, Camaro’s inventory rose to a 139-day supply at the end of August, said Jim Cain, a GM spokesman. The incentives, coming at the end of the 2016 model year, helped lower Camaro supply to 120 days, still twice what is consider an optimum inventory. Mustang supply rose to 89 days at the end of September from 71 days a month earlier.

The deals on the Camaro will cool off this month as GM rolls out the 2017 model, Cain said.

“We’ve been able to achieve some pretty significant increases in retail market share and transaction prices while keeping our incentives pretty disciplined for the calendar year,” Cain said.

[mrsmackpaul]

Well I reckon I have the answer for this people keep on sending me videos of these Mustangs spinning out and getting tea strained when the driver gives them a boot full at speed LOL

So it appears no one can handle the Wild Mustang so they are sending them down under for them Skippy the bush kangaroos to break and I guarantee we will send them back broken LOL

seeya

 

Paul 

Edited October 11, 2016 by mrsmackpaul