Ford working to buy Brazilian automaker Troller
Man, I wish I spoke Portuguese. There's news out recently that Ford Brazil is looking to buy Brazilian automaker Troller Veiculos Especiais SA, which makes two models of off road vehicles, the Jeep-like T4 and the Pantanal truck. Hearing this, and knowing Brazil's ethanol-happy auto market, I thought I'd try and see if this buyout might be an under-the-radar way for Ford to boost its E85 plans in America. No such luck.Because the Troller site is all in Portuguese, I turned to Google Translate to help out, and I discovered that Troller makes only diesel vehicles, so no help there with E85. But perhaps Ford is interested in Troller's drive-by-wire technology, which can be found in Troller's 2007 T4.
Troller is a nine-year-old company with a production capacity of about 400 vehicles a month. The acquisition should be finished soon, the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported Thursday.
[Source: Dow Jones Newswires / Rogerio Jelmayer via Autoblog]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom 6:03PM (11/14/2006)
"But perhaps Ford is interested in Troller's drive-by-wire technology, which can be found in Troller's 2007 T4."
Not the case, that has already been done by Ford of Europe, like 3-4 years ago, and is the control system for the light duty diesels over there. This is pure marketing, and Ford of Brazil wanting to expand it's influence. Who knows what they will do with it, nothing special, just 400 jeep ripoffs a month, nothing ford can sell in the US. No real reason for the purchase, we will see.
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Guillaume Hurtado 2:08PM (11/21/2006)
Hello,
I`ve read your comments about Ford and Troller and I need to inform you something.
Ford is not looking for Troller`s drive-by-wire technology, both Troller and Ford use the same Diesel engine supplied by International engines.
I don`t have all the information, but it seems that Ford wants to buy Troller in order to stop Troller`s production and restart to sell the Land Rover Defender to the Brazilian army.
Regards.
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