There were a number of them at the Sandown 500. Pity that all of them had rental company stickers on the rear window.

FF

There were a number of them at the Sandown 500. Pity that all of them had rental company stickers on the rear window.

FF
That's interesting. Do you know if any rental co's are a sponsor at the event?

There were a number of them at the Sandown 500. Pity that all of them had rental company stickers on the rear window.

FF

Ha... atleast now you can say that you've seen more than two 380's next to each other at one given time. Good to see some people are buying them even if it is rental companies.


btw....Geez havn't seen you around here in a while mate!?!?

Ha... atleast now you can say that you've seen more than two 380's next to each other at one given time. Good to see some people are buying them even if it is rental companies.


btw....Geez havn't seen you around here in a while mate!?!?

Have nothing to say about the 380 which is good. MMAL building 50 cars per day (average). So why bother saying anything? To think that this time last year volume production of the 380 started and MMAL were up to 170 cars per day (even pushing to 190 cars per day in about Oct/Nov 2005 to make up for lost volume due to early production problems)

FF

Have nothing to say about the 380 which is good. MMAL building 50 cars per day (average). So why bother saying anything?

FF

LOL.. so since I told you not to make negative comments/statements regarding the 380 on the AMC forum you have stopped altogether because there is currently no good news regarding the 380.

You can post what ever you want, it just annoys the sh*t out of me when people contininually criticise a car that isn't that much different then any car built by any Australian manufacture (or even imported cas) hence people bag the crap out of it.

Don't worry it's not you I am referring to, just people who raid the forum and post crap to piss people off.

Anyway welcome back to the forum.


Good to hear you seen a number of 380's on the weekend.

Come on FF, what's the official sales figures for august?

Come on FF, what's the official sales figures for august?
Don't be too shocked if they're even worse than the 826 sold in July...:doubt:

But hopefully we'll see a 4-figure result.:pray:

im seeing about 5 380's a week, and i do about 150-300kms a week city driving,

btw i never seen 2 380s together come tothink of it :redface: not even 3 in a day

I drive on average 500-700kms per week, also inner-city/metropolitan driving (Melb), and I see roughly at LEAST 5 380's per day. Admittedly I like to look out for them.:)

There's a decent mix of base models (still most prominent), VRXs, LS/LXs and GTs too, not like when TL Magna came out where nearly all models you saw were ES's.

I see one or two daily.

Cop car and one of the teachers has one.

Come on FF, what's the official sales figures for august?

The numbers should be released tomorrow.

FF

The numbers should be released tomorrow.

FF
Excellent :). *Waits anxiously*.

Falcon Freak - why do you bother to keep posting? i mean you where being a pain when i was on this forum like 3 months ago, i went away for a while, came back, and your still at it! You do realise that people said the EXACT same thing about the AU falcon don't you? And how successful is the BA falcon now? yeah exactly, companies can turn it around! Give MMAL a chance man and stop being so negetive.

How much contact do you have with MMAL? Do you know what they are working on at the moment? I don't claim that I know EVERTHING that MMAL is doing at the moment. But I can say that there are many, many empty desks in their engineering department which were occupied two years ago. And there isn't much activity from what I have seen. So what do you base you comments upon?

adz89 - this is exactly the reason why I don't post here often. I visit this forum on a regular basis to see what is being written about the 380. But I CBF wasting time arguing with morons.

FF

How much contact do you have with MMAL? Do you know what they are working on at the moment? I don't claim that I know EVERTHING that MMAL is doing at the moment. But I can say that there are many, many empty desks in their engineering department which were occupied two years ago. And there isn't much activity from what I have seen. So what do you base you comments upon?

adz89 - this is exactly the reason why I don't post here often. I visit this forum on a regular basis to see what is being written about the 380. But I CBF wasting time arguing with morons.

FF

You have a point about the reduction in skilled workers in MMAL. There are many un-occupied desks which were once occupied only 2 years ago. I am worried that if sales don't pick up that the may be more redundent workers. I really hope sales pick up and that they do re-hire people and (fingers crossed) manufacture a 2nd vehicle on the excess capacity.

We aren't all morons here, but, as you state the raw facts are depressing and until the situation improves we should all learn to accept that. Once again, I'd much prefer them to stay here manufacturing at the pace they are now compared to not manufacturing at all in Oz.

I am sure the situation will improve over the coming months and they are hopefully forced to increase production.

I am sure the situation will improve over the coming months and they are hopefully forced to increase production.

I hope you are right. But I wouldn't put any money on it.

FF

Falcon Freak - why do you bother to keep posting? i mean you where being a pain when i was on this forum like 3 months ago, i went away for a while, came back, and your still at it! You do realise that people said the EXACT same thing about the AU falcon don't you? And how successful is the BA falcon now? yeah exactly, companies can turn it around! Give MMAL a chance man and stop being so negetive.
I can't believe I'm gonna say this, and I know falcon freak has perhaps been a little too negative in the past, but I see nothing unnecessarily negative with his involvement here now - simply saying things the way they are, though I still disagree with his sig (it's a forum - all opinions - and mine are always right!lol)

It wouldn't do much harm for some of us, possibly even myself, to get a dose of reality. We're naturally blinded by our sheer love for MMAL and a desperate want to see 380 succeed. We may not like it, but life ain't all roses and happy joy joy butterflies.

My educated guess would be that because the Lonsdale engine plant is now no more, and most significant engineering works on the 380 are actually carried out in Japan, there is a number of empty desks at MMAL's engineering department.

I would say however that there is a more than reasonable chance that MMAL's production numbers will increase between now and 12-18 months down the track - but how much we won't know.

I actually think the Aurion will hurt 380 more than VE, coz at least in lower specced models 380 still has alot to offer in terms of features etc. But Aurion seems to be, on paper at least, superior in every way - bar price... and if the soon to follow s'charged TRD version is AWD, well...:doubt:

Article from the Adelaide Advertiser


MITSUBISHI Motors in Tokyo plans to reduce its number of templates for the vehicles it produces to six from the current level of 14 in a move to cut costs.

Each of these templates, called a platform, costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and the reduction also was expected to shorten the time needed to roll out new models, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday.
Mitsubishi currently uses four separate platforms for its mini-vehicle line-up alone, and plans to combine that into one.

In Adelaide, Mitsubishi said the move made economic sense.

"It helps with development times and costs to share platforms," Mitsubishi Motors Australia spokesman Kevin Taylor said yesterday.

"We certainly see a sharing of platforms with the 380 and other products around the world."

Sales for the 380 were up for August compared with July.

2 pieces of good news, particularly MMC's decision to reduce platform numbers - they're finally using their brains!

FCAI top ten manufacturers by volume

www.fcai.gov.au
http://www.fcai.com.au/images/cms/Aug_06_Top_10.jpg

That is so depressing :(.
Such a pity that operations at MMAL are slowing down so much. One good thing to come out of it though is that Adelaide Uni has gained the excellent skills of Rod 'Dyno' Campbell :D. An excellent asset to our FSAE team.

I've said it before though, the 380 will not sell good numbers until they have a hero car. Goddamnit give me and some of my mates at uni one with the compatible US AWD chassis and we could make something that would make HSV/FPV owners very scared.:badgrin: That'd be an awesome 4th year project TT AWD 380 weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

dave_au i don't have significant contact with MMAL however i DO know that yes alot of MMAL's engineering has been reduced and the majority of engineering is done in japan, however this is nothing all that unusual. All 4 major car manufacturers hire a whole bunch of engineers while designing a new car, then when the car is released those engineer's contracts are up and they move on and the companies engineering workforce shrinks untill the next major project comes along. With no current major projects in place for MMAL its only natural that their engineering staff would be reduced, its not good business sense to pay an engineering workforce to sit around doing nothing is it.. Now that VE is released Holden will also downsize its engineering workforce...

As for the newspaper article, this is good logic by mitsubishi. Audi/VW have been masters off doing this for years. They have what is called the modular platform, basically it means that almost every car in the Audi/VW lineup can be built of the one single platform, massively reducing development budgets for new models and massively reducing the time to build new models. This could actually save MMAL because they could "bid" for the right, within the mitsubishi world, to be in charge of development for the "large" MMC vehicle platform. Obviously only those within MMAL know what the true story is here, but hopefully its good. As i've said before its silly for MMC to ditch MMAL and tonsley park after the massive amount of money they have spent building it up over the last few years, so theres the potential that MMC will want to find a usefull role for MMAL

dave_au i don't have significant contact with MMAL however i DO know that yes alot of MMAL's engineering has been reduced and the majority of engineering is done in japan, however this is nothing all that unusual. All 4 major car manufacturers hire a whole bunch of engineers while designing a new car
Can't remember raising that as a point but your right in regards to the engineers being contractors - I think you might be confusing me with falcon freak? :rant:

And yes I know how the automotive industry works :D

Can't remember raising that as a point but your right in regards to the engineers being contractors - I think you might be confusing me with falcon freak? :rant:

And yes I know how the automotive industry works :D

yeah just realised my mistake, sorry make, comments where aimed at falcon freak :redface:

We aren't all morons here,

It only takes a couple of them to spoil the experience.......

FF

It's also not hard to add someone to your ignore list either...or report the posts...or contact a mod or admin...

what? where did that come from?