Territory production tailored to market demand

Ford Australia President Marin Burela admits that the locally-developed Territory SUV has been left to wither on the vine. Now, demand for the softroader has reached the point that Ford Australia is only building it to order.

"In four and a half years, we haven't done a lot to refresh the Territory," he told journalists at the opening of ACART last week (more here).

"I am absolutely convinced that as soon as we go out there and demonstrate that we haven't forgotten about the car -- we love the car -- the consumers are going to start coming back to us, because it gives them a reason to buy another Territory."

With the SY Series II upgrade, the rear-wheel drive Territory's fuel consumption has been reduced to 11.1L/100km, which reduces some of the SUV's exposure to criticism for its thirst. Ford may be trusting that this fuel efficiency gain will also address some of the demand for diesel-engined variants.

Whether the upgrade model (more here) will be enough to assuage that demand remains to be seen. Burela, however, appears to recognize that the Territory needs to move with the times, if only to appease those potential repeat buyers who need to see some significant change from the car they've owned for up to five years before they'll stump up the cash for a new one.

"In fact, the overwhelming comment that I receive, through letters from private buyers is very simply: 'Dear Mr Burela, can you tell us when you're going to come out with a new Territory? I've owned mine now for three years and I'm looking forward to buying a new one.'

"When I talk to the dealers, the dealers come out and say: 'I get a lot of people coming in and they're waiting for a new Territory... [These] are repeat buyers."

The problem for repeat buyers is that unless you give them some reason to return and do business with you again, they'll look elsewhere. That undoubtedly explains why Ford Australia is currently building the Territory to individual orders -- and the SY II may not be different enough to warrant buyers revisiting the Territory.

"Every Territory that we build is a Territory that has been ordered," says Burela, satisfied that the production now balances the demand nicely -- and the car can still occasionally outsell Kluger from one month to the next.

"We are building cars to demand. We took the tough decisions last year in terms of balancing our production throughput to demand for the vehicles. We are watching it almost on a weekly basis."

But is it enough to be building handfuls of Territory in even these straitened times?

It might be argued that more effort and money expended on the Territory in the years since the SUV's introduction in 2004 might have saved Ford from Territory's current production status -- and one significantly at odds with the company's founder and his innovation of volume selling from rationalised mass production. Remember the phrase "any colour you like as long as it's black"?

There's a school of thought that a diesel Territory could reinstall the Ford at the top of the VFACTS heap. On that point, Burela hedges.

"That medium SUV business is... split 50/50 between diesel and petrol," he explains. "The real challenge here is which way do you go to in fact be able to meet consumer needs, because the consumer one month goes out there and says 'Well I'm going to go and buy a petrol [vehicle]' when petrol prices go down -- and then the next month, when petrol prices go up, they go out there and buy diesels, so we're evaluating that right now.

"We will not be in a position to make any announcement on the powertrain line-up on the Territory for about another month and a half. Once we are absolutely confident and clear in terms of what we're doing, we'll then get you guys together and share with you what our plans are."

So the good news is in a month and a half we'll know for sure what Ford plans for the vehicle Ford promotes as a lifestyle alternative to the Falcon.

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