A Faster Horse

---

This is our design

development department here,

where basically the mustang's

been designed since 50 years.

Not many people have access

to this room

so you're very privileged to

see where magic is happening.

You can imagine every single

designer in this building

wants to be part of the story.

The designers now

can sketch on the computer,

but I think that some

of the creativity is lost.

I think a sculpture

adds a lot of ideas

that you don't do

with a computer.

That's one cost that's

held through design.

We never left Clay models.

There's nothing like getting

a three-dimensional product

that you can take outside,

put it in the sun,

spin it around on a turntable,

and look at it.

You cannot evaluate

just looking

at a two-dimensional screen.

You gotta have to have

the experience

walking around the Clay

and touching it

and feeling it

with your hands actually.

All these lines,

they have to know each other.

You can see right through

the middle

where you have

the horizontal lines

which are giving the length

and strength to the car.

And then the haunches

is ready to pounce

as it dives down and actually

points to the wheels.

So the entire power

is right there

where he's touching it.

The designer puts

emotion into a car.

He puts life into it.

This is what people

are looking for.

This is what gets them excited.

It's that magic.

It's that ingredient x,

the thing that turns it on,

that gives it that spark

that makes people say,

"I've got to have that."

A car is really rolling art

when you get right down to it.

The very first mustang

was designed in this room.

It's basically the spirit

of mustang looking over

every designer,

so make sure

that we don't screw up

the next model.

Designing a good-looking car

is absolutely easy as pie.

Designing a car

that the company can afford,

the manufacturing guys

can assemble,

the engineers can engineer,

that's damn difficult.

It's a creation

just as art is a creation.

Each new car,

you're going

where no one's

gone before,

and you're talking about,

you know,

hundreds of millions of dollars

and even billions of dollars.

Every day in the life

of a program,

you're living on the edge

of the cliff.

Welcome back now to Detroit.

The fourth largest city in

the U.S. filed for bankruptcy

Thursday afternoon

after struggling

with an $18 billion debt.

Everything is a huge risk.

We've had several brushes

with death.

Those other companies

didn't purposely

go out of business,

but it happens.

Every little detail

can be a big, big decision.

In the end, the person who

should be making those calls

is the chief program engineer.

I'm gonna show

you the file here

tracking all the way.

As the chief engineer,

you're accountable

for every success and every

failure on this program.

If I remember,

it's like 71 pounds.

- 70 pounds heavier?

- Yes.

- Guys.

- It's a stand-and-deliver job.

I'm just saying the scope

of the program does not align

with what we're trying to do.

We're spending most

of the money on this program

is being spent

for fuel economy,

and yet we're adding 70 pounds

of weight to the car.

That's like--

that doesn't even make sense.

Mustang is--

i always describe it

as the vehicle that everyone in

the company aspires to work on.

From the design team,

to marketing,

there are literally thousands

of people in the company

At the end of the day,

maybe only 30 of those people

actually work

for the chief engineer.

The nature of the job is you're

accountable for everything,

but you don't control directly

any of the resources.

It really comes down

to getting people

who don't report to you

to do what you need them to do.

It's the ultimate definition

of being a leader.

Before we even talk

weight buys,

we better talk

weight efficiency

of all the actions that

we're taking

because we're not gonna

throw more money in this car

just to offset an inefficient

addition to the program.

That we're not gonna do.

You cannot settle

for the wrong answer.

You cannot be second-best.

It's a very,

very difficult job.

Do I feel pressure?

As chief engineer,

you have a ton of pressure,

but it's good and bad, right?

We have a huge responsibility

to keep mustang going

in the direction

that it needs to go

and yet at the same time never

forgetting where we came from.

I do have decision-making tools.

We have an 8 ball,

and this is a--

the 8 ball that you'd find

in any store.

This-- actually,

we refer to this a lot.

It has guided us

along the way.

The other decision-making

tools we have

are persuasive tools

like bats and hammers

and things like that

that we, you know,

when we want something

to make sure

that they understand

that we're being serious.

You spend 12 to 14 hours

a day together.

If we can't have fun

and if we can't sort of laugh

about things every once

in a while,

then it's gonna get pretty

boring and you're not gonna get

the best out of people,

so we try to keep it alive.

So yeah, we use some of these

tools of decision-making.

Yeah.

Well,

that's a good question.

We're still starting

with initial sketches

that the designers do.

I don't think that process

has changed much

since day one in cars.

From the sketch,

they make a Clay model.

Then, we release that Clay

to the engineers.

We need to engineer the car

to work around

the appearance first

just trying to get

the pieces to fit.

A thousand details

that are behind every tiny,

little thing you see,

that is what makes a great car.

Every single part

of the car is new,

2,000-plus parts that

have to be designed,

developed,

tested, and assembled.

Like real textures,

wheel covers...

- Door handles...

- Engines, wheel base...

- Rear view mirror.

- ...Plates...

All those things have

to be designed in that product.

And remember, you have to make

these cars in their thousands.

It's really complicated,

making sure

that we design the vehicle

so that the people

who have to put the car together

can do it easily.

If you said to me,

"what's

the most important thing

your great-grandfather

Henry Ford ever did?"

I would say to you

the movie "assembly line."

That's what really took

the car business

from a cottage industry

to what we are today.

There are tremendous changes

being made in the technology.

What hasn't changed

is the process.

What we call the job 1 day,

it's really the finish line

for the whole team

and that's when

the 2015 mustang launches.

Job 1 is mass production.

It's really a culmination of

how everything comes together.

Because as you can imagine,

being a chief engineer,

when you start

shipping vehicles,

that's probably the biggest

moment of your career.

When the first set of customers

get in the car,

the goal that I set out

several years ago

will have been achieved.

But job 1 for us is--

that's when the car's

gonna start shipping out

on trains and on car carriers,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes