Ford And VW Will Join Forces For Future Projects

Volkswagen AG and the Ford Motor Company - two of the biggest car companies on the planet - are looking at ways of working together. The pair signed a “memorandum of understanding,” and are exploring what’s being dubbed a “strategic alliance.”

In a press release, Ford said that it at VW are “exploring potential projects,” but before you get excited about a Coyote V8-powered Arteon successor, it’s worth pointing out that the only thing specifically referred to is a “range of commercial vehicles.”

That said, the two firms are looking at joint projects in a “number of areas,” so who knows what this could mean for the future. One thing that is for sure is it won’t see one company taking a stake in the other - this is purely about R&D.

Ford’s Global Markets boss Jim Farley had the following to say about the move:

“Ford is committed to improving our fitness as a business and leveraging adaptive business models – which include working with partners to improve our effectiveness and efficiency. We look forward to exploring with the Volkswagen team in the days ahead how we might work together to better serve the evolving needs of commercial vehicle customers – and much more.”

Note the fantastically mysterious but quite exciting bit right at the end. Meanwhile head of VW Group Strategy Dr. Thomas Sedran said:

“Markets and customer demand are changing at an incredible speed….To adapt to the challenging environment, it is of utmost importance to gain flexibility through alliances. This is a core element of our Volkswagen Group Strategy 2025. The potential industrial cooperation with Ford is seen as an opportunity to improve competitiveness of both companies globally.”

As to what might result from this huge tie-up, we’d like to open the floor to you for some healthy speculation in the comments. Both serious and non-serious suggestions allowed…