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Re: My Five Door SE from Finland Posted by Larry West [Email]  (#1140)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Larry West) on Wed, 2 Oct 2013 12:10:40
In Reply to: Re: My Five Door SE from Finland, BrianC, Wed, 2 Oct 2013 09:15:02 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
In theory, one or two big Valmet-style plants could produce a huge percentage of the rare and wonderful cars out there, but the problems aren't in the process. Valmet succeeded because they were independent (though initially a joint venture with and/or a subsidiary of Saab), and could do things that were impossible for a large plant designed to produce lots of one model. But it also took buy-in from the car makers that they would get just as good a product as with doing it themselves, and that their technology wouldn't go off to the other makers. Since Valmet, other than a very few specialty cars, didn't make anything of their own, there wasn't much danger in them stealing the IP of the car makers.
In the US, there is no independent car plant that I'm aware of. If someone had pocket change totaling in the hundreds of millions, they might take a chance on buying or building one, but getting the clients in would still be problematic. I don't think we'd soon see Corvettes coming off the same line as Lincolns anytime soon...
A lot of plants are becoming more flexible in this way, but they're still going to be staying "in the family" so to speak. BMW's Spartanburg, SC plant builds X3s, X5s & X6s, and built the early Z3s as well. Even the Trollhättan plant got in on the act, building Cadillac BLS cars nose to tail with 9-3s and 9-5s (the BLS was a heavily restyled 9-3SS...).
As for Euro NCAP, the dates on the Euro NCAP website are the year of publication of their results, not any particular model year tested. 2003 cars would have been on sale from at least August/September of 2002, if not earlier. So the relationship between the model year tested and the publication date is tenuous, at best.
_______________________________________ Current: 2002 9-5 Aero Kombi Cosmic Blue 2000 9-5 SE sedan, Imola Red 1990 900S Rose Quartz, Auto Past: 1999 9-5 LPT Combi 1999 9-5 LPT sedan 2002 9-5 Arc 1990 900 5-speed 1986 900 turbo Convertible 1991 9000 turbo 1980 99 GLi 1986 900 turbo 1986 900 S 1991 900 turbo 1984 900 turbo 1976 99 GL
, Wed, 2 Oct 2013 08:18:50, Tue, 1 Oct 2013 12:44:52, Wed, 2 Oct 2013 07:10:08, Wed, 2 Oct 2013 12:10:40 <-- Viewing This Message
, Wed, 2 Oct 2013 07:59:24, Wed, 2 Oct 2013 08:15:33
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