Ford And Weight Reduction.

[Falc'man]

Browsing through some other forums I stumbled upon this little tidbit. As power has more or less reached a ceiling in some respects, the next initiative is weight saving. How this translates to what happens locally, I have no idea. But at least the parent company isn't standing still with respects to this, and maybe Ford Au can benefit one way or another.

Originally Posted by ProudPony

The next Mustang (and this Boss car is the guinea pig for the work) WILL be lighter. We are already prototyping/making parts for the Mustang (and other Fords) that are weight-specific. Imagine your machine operators putting each part on a digital scale at the QC station to get a red or green light on the weight of each part. Yes, every single part. We have max/min part weights we have to hit now - scale gives a green light if in spec, red light if too heavy or too light. There is other work I can't speak of on this board too, but suffice to say that weight is now a big issue at Ford (all models, but Mustang in particular).

Link

Have a read of his other posts in the same thread, quite informative but also interesting view on how Mustang has ended up.

[russellw]

There will obviously be parallel work going on in the joint directions of weight saving and engine / driveline efficiency and no doubt some of the technological improvements will gradually filter their way down into mainstream cars as they usually do.

I know we consider modern cars to be heavy but there are some interesting comparisons to be made.

As an example, a P5 LTD weighed about 1791 kg and a BA LTD about 1865 kg - a relatively modest gain of 74 kg or 4%. Dimensionally similar, yet the improvements that have been made in weight reducing materials over that time have allowed more features without a massive weight penalty.

An XC auto sedan weighed about 1488 kg compared to 1704 for an FG equivalent - a gain of 216 kg or 14% but the latter car has a lot of features that weren't standard in the XC equivalent, including some heavy items like Air Conditioning and power windows as well as all the additional safety requirements we demand of our cars now.

14% seems like a lot until we stop for a moment and look at one of the best selling cars globally, the Toyota Corolla.

In the late 70's an E20 base model Corolla tipped the scales at 770 kg whereas the current equivalent is 1,310 kg - an increase of 540 kg or 70%. It has, of course, picked up more standard features (although the 70's one was well equipped for the era) but it has also really gone up at least one size class dimensionally during that time. Interesting to note that a mid 80's AE85 Corolla weighed 880 kg (a 14% increase in 10 years) while a mid 90's E110 weighed 1,095 (a 24% gain in that decade).

Cheers
Russ

[Road_Warrior]

Statutory body design requirements have driven the weight gains which have in turn driven manufacturers to find the weight savings. Like many 'top of the tree' engineering exercises, bits of it will filter down to the cooking models. The question for the cars made by Ford Australia is, how much, and where?

[mik]

yep its easy to see where all the extra weight comes from in the modern cars, some time ago i inherited a rt81 corona early 1973 model(the small one) , you look under the bonnet and theres masses of room, no air con,pwr steer,abs,electronics, even in the car no console, no retractor seat belts,air bags, tyres/wheels are razor blades, but it is fitted with the luxury one speaker push button radio lol.

[1TUFFUTE]

dont waste your breathe guys...the newer cars only seem light with all there features compared....not because of weight loss technoligies.....more likely its cheaper and it works so well have and make it out of that thanks