General Motors and Ford just concluded an absolutely brutal business day on Wall Street, which echoed the performance of the markets in general as the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid another 678.91 points to close below 9,000 at 8,579.19 points. GM closed the day at 4.94 after having dipped as low as 4.72 just minutes before the bell rang at 4PM, while Ford ended today at just 2.14. Analysts are noting that GM shares haven't been this cheap since the 1950s and that a single share of Ford stock costs less than a gallon of gas at the moment. We are most certainly not financial analysts, but we do know these companies are heading in the wrong direction fast and that a brighter future is not weeks but months and years away.
We always scoff at dealerships that charge $250 for floormats, but there are some truly expensive options out there that most of us would need a second mortgage (good luck getting that) to afford. Car and Driver has a new Top 10 List that details the most decadent options in the auto industry, and it's a pretty fun read. We knew of a few, like the Rolls-Royce Starlight Headliner that adds 1,600 tiny lights to the ceiling of your Phantom Coupe, but we didn't know it carries a $12,100 price tag. Then there's the Aston Martin Jaeger LeCoultre AMVOX2 DBS Transponder Watch that can unlock the doors of your DBS. Just $37,900! What a steal. One option we weren't aware of is the Granite Trim package that Maybach offers. A small base fee of about $60,600 will get you a gussied up S-Class with actual rock in the doors. Click here to read the rest of the Top 10 Most Decadent Options list and be thankful that you're not wealthy enough to make these tough choices when buying a car.
The highly anticipated 2010 Chevy Camaro is now only a few months from hitting the showroom floor, and we're just getting the final scoop on standard and optional content that will be available for all five Camaro variants. Customers wanting to order a Camaro can choose from LS, 1LT, 2LT, 1SS and 2SS models, and standard and optional equipment varies greatly between each package. The base model LS comes equipped with OnStar, 18-inch rims, and a 300-hp V6 engine, and the only optional item is floor mats. The 1LT package includes optional 19-inch rims, a Boston Acoustics sound system and a sunroof. The 2LT gets standard 19s, the sound system, leather seats, ambient lighting and Bluetooth and USB connections. If you want your Camaro to include a 422-hp V8, you'll need to step up to the SS. The 1SS package includes standard 20-inch rims, four-piston Brembo brakes, a limited-slip differential and engine and transmission cooler. Options include polished aluminum wheels, a sunroof, and the upgraded sound system. The 2SS model adds all the standard features of the 1SS package and the 2LT package plus options including dual rally strips, a sunroof, and the Inferno Orange Accent interior. All trims except for the LS model have the option of adding the RS package, which gets you 20-inch rims, HID lamps, a spoiler (for the LT model), a Midnight Silver paint finish, darkened tail lights, and body colored molding.
As staggering as it may seem, the 2008 Ford F-150 pickup can be ordered in billions of different combinations. That's all going to change for 2009. In an effort to reduce complexity and cut spiraling costs in the process, Ford will be slashing the number of possible F-150 configurations by 90 percent. The automaker isn't leaving the rest of the lineup alone either. The Ford Expedition goes from 250,000 combos down to fewer than 10,000. The 2009 Lincoln MKS debuts with about 300 combinations, and the 2010 Ford Focus will offer only about 150, which is 95 percent fewer than the current model. Are you in the market for a 2009 Ford F-150 and worried that you won't be able to get it exactly the way you want? Don't fret, Ford will still offer more than 9 million combinations for next year's model, including a brown one we presume.
Nobody buys a bare-bones Lamborghini unless they're planning on racing it or want to pretend they are. With the Superleggera discontinued and the new lightweight Gallardo yet to rear its head, most buyers of the new LP560-4 will be spec'ing out their Lambos with all the kit. The car retails for $280,000. Big sticker price, then, but tick the boxes for all those must-have options and a quarter-million will look like a bargain as the price inches closer to a third.
For example, most Lambo buyers opt for the sequential paddle-shift transmission, which Sant'Agata calls e-gear, and which adds another $12k to the price. Carbon ceramic brakes? You're going to want that stopping power to keep your six-figure supercar out of the trees, won't you? Another $19k. Throw in sat-nav and up-rated rolling stock and the new Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 is pushing $322,000. And that's if you can actually get your hands on one without finder's speculation or premiums, not to mention the cost of gas, insurance and the racks of tires you're bound to go through. Better talk to the kids about the benefits of going to college in-state.
Mazda recently sent out a survey request to potential customers, the purpose of which was to allow these survey takers to build a 2009 Mazda6 with whatever options, packages and colors they wanted so that the automaker could gauge which will be most popular when the car goes on sale. Unfortunately, Mazda was smart and the survey can only be taken once, but one person recorded all the information he saw and posted it on the Mazda6club.com forum. His notes after the jump give us an idea of what trim levels, options and pricing will be available when the car does go on sale, though none of it is written in stone.
It appears that the 2009 Mazda6 will be available in two basic versions: the Mazda6 i that comes with a 170-hp 2.5L four-cylinder with VVT and the more powerful Mazda6 s that's motivated by a 272-hp 3.7L V6. The Mazda6 i will be offered in SV, Sport, Touring and Grand Touring models, while the Mazda6 s will be available as Sport, Touring and Grand Touring. As far as pricing goes, the Mazda6 i SV kicks things off with a base price of $19,850 while the Mazda6 s Grand Touring tops the range with a base price of $29,150. That's quite a large range that should satisfy the wants and needs of most buyers, and features like Xenon headlamps, Bluetooth, a Blind Spot Monitoring system, rain-sensing wipers and wheels up to 18-inches in diameter should position the new Zoom-Zoom sedan well against its mid-size family sedan competition.
Check out all the packages, standard features and pricing info after the jump, but remember they may not be the same when the car officially goes on sale.
If you're in the market for a Focus sedan, the question is, exactly what kind of Focus will you buy? According to Ford's option sheets, there are 100,000 different combinations you can create. Eighty percent of Focus sedan sales, however, are comprises of just 4,000 of those combos. This glut of choice has increasingly become an issue that translates into lost money, unhappy customers and overwhelmed dealers for the Big Three, and now they're going to trim the options tree.
Ford's new marketing chief Jim Farley has said, "Coming from Toyota, I can tell you that the opportunity is there to reduce the complexity of our line-up." Toyota cars are not known for an obscene wealth of choice, although Nissan has found itself with too many choices on the Maxima and Altima, and has cut them down recently. Meanwhile, the domestics are working to figure out how to rationalize the choices they offer -- and the money they spend on them -- with the need to give people want they want.
Ford is doing it by shrinking the number of "buildable combinations of the 2008 Focus by 99 percent." Chrysler has reduced its own complexity by a claimed 93-percent over the last two years by jettisoning options. And GM's global platform strategy aims to severely curtail the expense of developing and building a car. Said marketer John Tulloch, the manufacturers can win this fight "if the savings are used to improve remaining models and reduce sticker prices." We can only hope.
Part of Ford's revised business strategy is to make it easier for both dealers and consumers to get a hold of the vehicles they want. As such, Ford is implementing a plan that will reduce the number of options on its models so buyers aren't overwhelmed with choices and dealerships can stock up on the most popular models packing the most sought after equipment.
The plan is make more of the optional equipment standard and Ford is looking into what buyers want so it can outfit the vehicles accordingly. Aside from giving customers the options they desire, it means that dealers won't have stale product collecting dust on the lot. Mark Fields cited one of the most egregious offenders, the Lincoln LS (discontinued in '06), as being available in some 50,000 different configurations -- unfortunately, none of which involved a manual and a V8.
The move seemed to get a fair amount of support from dealers when it was announced at the NADA conference and Ford hopes to keep pace with other automakers that have been doing this for decades. The simplified options list will make its debut later this year on Ford's 2009 models sold in the U.S.
