Thread: Car Talk
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2009-12-23, 11:59

Quote:
Originally Posted by Quagmire View Post
The Chinese has bought one Swedish brand. Geely just bought Volvo.

http://media.ford.com/article_displa...ticle_id=31664


I'm a little confused. Ford just guaranteed themselves a new competitor...one that's wanted an in on the US market for a while and certainly won't let go, and one that now has a brand with a safe image that will counteract their biggest weakness (safety). How is this a good idea for Ford? Because they got $2B for it? That's really not that much money, if you think about it. And what do they have now, in that high-end (ish) space? Lincoln? Give me a break.

I wanted a C30, but now I'm not so sure. It's still the same C30, of course, but inferior Volvos in the future could hurt Volvo's brand image and tank its resale value. It'll be a while before we see any models that reflect the change in ownership, but then again, it'll be a while before I can afford a C30, too.

Oh well. We're suddenly faced with an overabundance of adorable small cars, so there's lots of other choices...but my first one was still the C30. It's like the Saab 9-1 we never got.

This is a bad year to be a fan of Swedish cars.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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