Editor-in-Chief's Note: Now that Phoebe Wall Howard has unleashed a multi-1000 word "think" piece in the Detroit Free Press on the carefully reconstructed brilliance of Jim Farley - it was so embarrassingly gushing that even Ford PR Chief Mark Truby must be blushing and staring at his shoes - the canonization of Farley has well and truly begun. (First we had to put up with "St. Elon" Musk; now we're burdened with "St. Jim" Farley. Pathetic.) I'm not going to go into it beyond saying that, after reading it, the uninformed might think that Farley walks on water, possesses the riveting intellect that occupies a space in the stratosphere beyond mere mortals, has never put a wheel wrong in his entire career, and is now solidly in the discussion to replace Jim Hackett when "Professor Moon Beam" wanders off into the sunset. This was a setup piece designed to portray a wonderfully benign Farley, an executive whose rise has no perceptible limit, and whose enduring warmth is something that people crave to bask in. This latest "humanization" campaign of Farley is pretty much unmitigated horseshit - aided and abetted by Wall Howard - and it has nothing to do with the "real" Jim Farley, the one hordes of people at Ford have grown to loathe with a seething level of disgust that is palpable. You want to know the real Jim Farley? This is what I had to say about him in May of 2018 in "Ford in Free Fall" (below). -PMD

But another situation is roiling Bill Ford’s decision making at this very moment, and it involves the rise of another executive, one who is unfettered by rational thought and untethered by accountability, and who has gone completely off the rails. Jim Farley, the former Toyota wunderkind who was responsible for the launch of the Scion brand, was brought in by Alan Mulally to be Chief Marketing Officer way back when. And not unexpectedly, his debut at Ford didn’t exactly get off to an auspicious start. Farley didn’t waste any time transforming himself into an enfant terrible right out of the gate. Displaying a prodigiously short attention span and burdened by an excruciatingly painful interpersonal awkwardness, Farley’s belligerent, condescending style of dealing with underlings, along with his classic “parachute in, helicopter out” M.O. that has defined bad actor executives for decades in this business, became his calling card. Internally, Farley became known as "The Two Jims," and interactions with him became a crap shoot, hinging upon whether people encountered the "good" Jim or the "bad" Jim on that particular day. Needless to say when the "bad" Jim was unleashed, Farley left a trail of bad feelings and highly questionable decisions in his wake. 

Farley has long considered himself to be “the smartest guy in the room” at Ford, much to everyone’s endless chagrin, because the reality is that he isn’t. It’s a carefully crafted façade that is hollow to its core. Farley’s bad executive behavior starts with his inability to listen, considering his own counsel to be by far the best source when it comes to decision making. (Ironically this is the absolute opposite of Alan Mulally, who regularly canvassed multiple constituencies on major decisions.) And because of that, as well as a host of other annoyances, Farley left such a bitter taste in people’s mouths that when he was shipped off to run Ford of Europe several years ago the overwhelming sense of relief internally at Ford was palpable.

Blissfully unaware that he was universally loathed back in Dearborn, Farley seized upon his assignment in Europe, seeing it as a stepping stone to the executive suite at Ford. And the planets were aligned for him to come off as a hero there, too, because the European market had been in the doldrums for so long that the only way it could go was up. Steve Odell, who had been running Ford of Europe and had done all of the heavy lifting by closing plants and laying off people, set the table for Farley to succeed. And the inevitable happened, as Ford’s fortunes recovered in Europe along with the overall market. Farley took advantage of the opportunity and made sure all of the execs back in Dearborn could see what a genius he was, and unfortunately, too many fell for it.

The problem with all of this was that once Mark Fields was jettisoned from the company, not only did Bill Ford bring in Hackett, he brought Farley back from Europe, and made Joe Hinrichs and Farley co-No. 2 executives reporting to Hackett. And it proved to be a fateful decision, because at that very moment Farley decided that he was very much going to be The Guy.

As I said previously, an emboldened Farley, unfettered and untethered, turned out – predictably – to be disastrous. With his eyes set firmly on Hackett’s job, the very worst of Farley returned to Ford headquarters, only now his most repugnant qualities were magnified and amplified, with no one seemingly able to rein him in.

Besides his now-signature belligerence and rudeness in full view, Farley started to get out ahead of his skis, making decisions that were puzzling at best and potentially harmful to the long-term health of the company. Having been gunning for Ford’s advertising agency – the WPP-owned GTB – for years for slights both real and imagined, Farley almost immediately put the massive Ford account up for review. This, after WPP/GTB had been involved with Ford for 73 years. Could the advertising be improved? Certainly. And there's a way to do that. But destroying a long, fruitful relationship to assuage Farley’s gargantuan ego was flat-out irresponsible and uncalled for.

Farley also commandeered company appearances in front of financial analysts, something completely beyond his ken, thinking that if he demonstrated his acumen there that he would gain favor with Bill Ford and the board. And true to form, this proved to be a total disaster as well. Industry analysts are still talking about Farley’s cringe-worthy performance at the Deutsche Bank Global Auto Industry Conference here in Detroit back in January, where he came off as being someone who was flippant, woefully ill-prepared and not ready for prime time, and consequently Ford came off poorly too. Do you wonder why Ford can’t gain any traction on Wall Street? Farley’s dismal performance that night didn't do the company any favors.

And then there was the “we’re going to get out of the car business” decision that turned out to be an unmitigated PR disaster, because it was handled poorly and came off as a knee-jerk pronouncement that hadn’t been thought through. It turns out that the idea was Farley’s (no big surprise), wittingly or unwittingly aided and abetted by CFO Bob Shanks. And internally it bore the signature of a classic Machiavellian move by Farley as well, because Joe Hinrichs wasn’t even aware that it was going down until after the fact, which is almost beyond comprehension. (Editor-in-Chief's Note: I spoke with Mark Truby, Ford's PR Chief, and he said that Joe Hinrichs was aware of the car decision. I stand corrected. -PMD)

Am I picking on Farley? Hardly. I have only scratched the surface in describing this egomaniacal character and his blatant power grab, and the sad thing is that there are several other areas he is seeing fit to mess with inside of Ford that could wreak havoc on the company’s future for years. And this simply shouldn’t be, of course. One bad actor shouldn’t be causing this much consternation and hand-wringing throughout the enterprise, threatening to jeopardize everything the Ford Motor Company stands for. When everything is factored in, Jim Farley is simply the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Bill Ford has a very difficult task facing him. He has to admit publicly (after first admitting it to himself) that Jim Hackett isn’t The Guy. Then he has to make sure that Jim Farley is kept as far away from being The Guy as is humanly possible, because left unimpeded Farley will be detrimental to the future of his family's company. 

I closed last week’s column with the following words, which still resonate loud and clear today: 

“In the meantime, since its future product announcement didn’t exactly set the world afire, the Ford executive team needs to press the reset button and focus on the task at hand. That means focusing on designing, engineering and building the best products they can muster for every segment the company competes in, despite the Wall Street cloud of negativity hanging over them.

Because in the end, there is one fundamental aspect of this business that will never change, and that is that it’s about the product, it has always been about the product, and it always will be about the product.”

(BMW images)
This is what a BMW motorcycle might look like if it is electrically powered. The BMW Motorrad Vision DC Roadster is a naked bike concept with electric drive. Replacing what would previously have been the engine, there is now a vertically fitted, longitudinally oriented battery. For cooling purposes, two side elements protrude with cooling ribs and integrated ventilators. As in the boxer engine of the BMW R 32 – the development of which was masterminded by Max Friz in 1923 – the cooling elements are placed in the air stream. The cylinder-shaped electric motor is positioned underneath the battery and is directly connected to the universal shaft. The BMW Motorrad Vision DC Roadster "demonstrates a creative drive architecture that visually echoes the history of BMW Motorrad while at the same time taking it a step further," according to BMW PR minions. “The boxer engine is the heart of BMW Motorrad – an absolute stalwart of its character. But BMW Motorrad stands for visionary zero-emissions vehicle concepts, too. In view of this, one question that arises is: what would happen if we were to replace the boxer engine with an electric motor and the required battery? The Vision Bike shows how we’re able to retain the identity and iconic appearance of BMW Motorrad in distinctive form while at the same time presenting an exciting new type of riding pleasure,” explains Edgar Heinrich, Head of Design BMW Motorrad. “After all: anyone who’s ever tried it out in practice knows very well that riding on two wheels is just as exciting when its electrically powered! The high level of torque right at set-off makes for breath taking acceleration. This almost brutal power delivery creates a whole new experience of dynamic performance. And the BMW Motorrad Vision DC Roadster puts a face to this experience.” 

(FCA)
The new 2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody is powered by the supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI® Hellcat V8 with 707HP and 650 lb.-ft. of torque, mated to the standard TorqueFlite eight-speed automatic transmission. FCA PR minions say that the new 2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody delivers a top speed of 196 mph, "continuing its reign as the most powerful and fastest mass-produced sedan in the world." The new aggressive and modern Widebody exterior, standard on Charger SRT Hellcat and available on Charger Scat Pack, features new front and rear fascias with integrated fender flares, which add 3.5 inches of width over wider 20-inch by 11-inch wheels, wider Pirelli 305/35ZR20 tires, Brembo six-piston front calipers with two-piece front brake rotors, and unique suspension tuning with Bilstein three-mode adaptive damping. How fast? The Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody runs 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds and delivers a quarter-mile elapsed time (ET) in 10.96 seconds. It also pulls .96 g on the skidpad, making this the quickest and best-handling production Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat ever built. The Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody runs 2.1 seconds faster than the vehicle it replaces on a 2.1-mile road course, equal to thirteen car lengths after one lap. The Charger Scat Pack model is designed to deliver the most bang for the buck with its 392-cubic-inch HEMI V-8 engine’s best-in-class naturally aspirated 485HP mated to TorqueFlite eight-speed automatic transmission. The Charger Scat Pack Widebody runs 0-60 mph in 4.3 seconds and delivers a quarter-mile ET of 12.4 seconds. It also pulls .98 g on the skidpad, making it the quickest and best-handling production Charger Scat Pack ever offered. Dealer orders open in the fall of 2019 and vehicles will start arriving in Dodge//SRT dealerships in early 2020.