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Ford boss Alan Mulally won’t say it and he won’t even hint at it - merely putting off the announcement with "We’ll talk about that in the future" - but the writing is on the wall, tucked in between the rhetoric, the hyperbole and the irritatingly repetitive "One Ford" sales pitch.
The issue really isn’t about Ford going front-wheel drive. Or losing the Falcon name. Or seeing the end of television battles at Bathurst and commonality at taxi ranks all over the nation. Get used to it - it’s over. No, the real story is about whether Australia plays a manufacturing role in the building of the next large car.
Mulally is strong on the “One Ford” principle that he masterminded. He isn’t a "car guy" like most of his contemporary auto industry chiefs. But he is an astute businessman and he knows the importance of cutting costs as much as every engineer knows the benefits of cutting vehicle weight. One of his causes is parts sharing. He reckons - and no-one’s arguing - that 60-70 per cent of a vehicle segment can share the same parts.
Taken further, with the C-segment Focus, there are 11 "top hats" - engineer speak for bodies that can range from sedans to hatches, wagons to coupes, convertibles to SUVs, utes to vans. The platform, complete with the drivetrain choice, is the same for the 11 variants.
That’s economy of scale.
The second of his causes is placing the right car segment at the centre of its market. No more mass global distribution of vehicles from one plant. An example is Ford’s B-segment vehicles - Fiesta, Figo and EcoSport - in India for the Asia-Pacific market.
The Indian market alone is massive and is forecast to rise to nine-million units a year by 2020. It’s an ideal place to be when you’re making small cars for its developing and maturing market.
Australia, by contrast, is bouncing around one-million vehicle sales a year and will probably be unlikely to hit 1.5 million by 2020. Ford has a modest but important slice of this market but its large car sales performance is poor, falling to around 18,000 Falcon sales in 2011 - it’s lowest figure since Ford began making the car in 1960.
Mulally admits that he can’t get every model to be structured on these lines - but he can do about 95 per cent. The odd ones out will include Mustang, which is a specific niche-market vehicle with specific drivetrain demands and a rear-drive platform.
Just like Falcon. Or is it? Mulally says motorists in the US, like other countries including Australia, are downsizing. That’s seen in the large car market in most global markets going into reverse over the past decade, and more so in the past five years.
"In the old days we would say the market was 25 per cent small car, 25 per cent mid-size cars and 50 per cent large cars," he said at the 2012 Delhi motor show where he unveiled the Indian-built, world focussed and Fiesta-based EcoSport SUV.
"Small cars were then seen as cheap and cheerful. Not anymore. Juts look at the Fiesta. We made a conscious decision to make cars for people that didn’t compromise on quality or safety or comfort or fuel efficiency or smart design but they wanted to choose a vehicle that works for them.
"You can se the future now. Now, nearly 60 per cent of vehicles - that’s 100 million a year - are B and C segment. Then 25 per cent are C and D segment and only 15 per cent are D and E segment. That’s a dramatic turnaround."
He said that the parts sharing and the acceptance that the company can make one car for a lot of markets - albeit with different "top hats" - is the key to Ford’s survival and by doing so, will make it the "most successful car company" in the world.
"When I joined (Ford, about five years ago) we had 97 nameplates. It’ll soon be 13 off eight or nine platforms with every variation - 11 variations on the Focus’ C-segment platform alone. That’s the future. The variation will be available to all our customers. We’ll be more affordable than anybody else."
Mulally knows the markets - importantly, the customers - are changing.
"Australia’s changing, the same way that the US is changing. You are seeing more and more smaller cars to serve the Australian customers," he says.
Where does Mulally see the rear-drive car in 10 years time?
"We don’t really know yet but clearly, the segment is getting smaller and we’re going to build platforms but over time, everything will move to that (downsizing) strategy - Falcon’s a great vehicle now and we’re continuing to invest in it over the next few years but over time, this is where the world is going - we’re going to be in every segment and we’ll make world-class product even if the segment is small. We’re always going to have a D/E segment car. It’s going to become more and more efficient - over time, right? - which can become a family of cars because that’s what the Australian customer wants."
And then the clanger: "Most customers don’t care where the car is made. They want the best value for money they can get."
Ford Australia can build - or at least - assemble a car and is likely to be very successful doing it. It can import the platform of the Ford Fusion - a C-D segment car shown in pre-production form at this month’s Detroit motor show - and "top hat" it with a sedan, hatch and SUV body made in Geelong.
It could even play a role in continuing with a rear-drive Falcon by continuing to supply partner Prodrive with Falcon sedan, ute and Territory shells to be built and sold as FPVs. That would create a niche market business for Australia’s performance enthusiasts while moving the car to a more upmarket position, away from taxi ranks, fleets and all the low-rent stigma that goes with those markets.
Hell, FPV could even launch low-cost performance vehicles to ignite the bottom end of the market.
It’s all possible. Just delete the Falcon word.
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