Ford and Volkswagen’s on-and-off fling gets another chapter
Yet to bear fruit, recent partnership is the third they’ve formed since the 1980s. Will they be able to make it work this time?
Automakers establish partnerships all the time. They’ve ranged from short-term collaborations to create a new component to complete mergers that even include unifying their leadership. The initial situation of each one in the beginning might vary a lot, but the purposes don’t: they’re always looking for some combination of larger market share, stronger image, and reduced costs.
The companies from Dearborn and Wolfsburg are currently drawing the plans to develop some automobiles together, but this example is particularly worthy of attention because they’ve already worked together twice almost at the same time, but in two separate regions. The following paragraphs walk you through each of those moments to better analyze such an intermittent relationship.
An ambitious start
The recession Latin America underwent in the 1980s left economic activities stalled to the point that some companies considered abandoning the region — Ford was one of them. Although Volkswagen was the best-seller at the time, it could always use help cutting costs. The Autolatina joint-venture was founded in 1987 starting with some engine swaps, especially VW’s towards Ford cars.
Things went well quickly enough to motivate them to deepen the partnership: dealers would work with both brands and the first joint models were released in 1989 (Verona) and 1990 (Apollo). Commercial success would escalate even more, including more shared cars, but so did the tension between the two and with the respective headquarters. Autolatina was silently disbanded in 1995.
Different approach in Europe
Rather than a merger of the regional operations, Autoeuropa is a factory Ford and Volkswagen built together in the Portuguese city of Palmela — the former took care of the industrial space, while the latter developed the vehicle. The decision to produce a minivan was well-appointed, given that the body style was booming in Europe at that time and neither partner offered one there yet.
The three models were released in 1991 and received a mild facelift in 1995 and a larger one in 2000. Ford eventually lost interest in the joint-venture and sold its part to Volkswagen in 1999; the Galaxy was produced until 2006 and then replaced with a Ford-only project. Meanwhile, Autoeuropa was retooled to produce the Eos (from 2006 to 2015) along with the remaining minivans.
Third time’s the charm?
This time, the actions started last year, so there isn’t much to show yet. Recent news states that Ford will be responsible to produce a midsize pick-up for both based on the next-generation Ranger while Volkswagen will derive a variation of the latest Caddy for its new partner. Later, Ford will develop a larger van for both of them. They’ll also work with Argo AI to use its self-driving technology.
Perhaps because of the previous experiences, the companies stated they won’t consider cross-ownership enterprises. Basically, they’ll simply join efforts and capital to share the necessary investments to comply with the latest regulation and delve deeper into autonomous driving. Do you believe they’ve effectively learned from their mistakes? Feel free to share your opinion as a comment!
