Always a risk the later in the build campaign an order is placed. And if Ford decides to abruptly shorten the model year as it did in 2012, no dealer will be able to control whether or not it receives any allocated vehicles that have not yet been built.
Yes, some dealers are more forthright than others. But THEY only know what their reps tell them, and reps aren't necessarily informed about directional changes the company may make that could cause a model year campaign to be cut short. They know what exists at the moment.
Only when a VIN has been assigned does any REAL assurance exist of a vehicle being built - and then it's getting built whether its wanted or not.
Allocations aren't non-perishable items. They're slots within a particular group of cars that will be manufactured whether or not dealers have specific orders to fill them. Dealers can "turn and earn" additional allocations based upon prior sales during the same year - or be given extra allocations during "build out" when Ford has determined the difference between what exists and what it wants to exist, which is the final step in scheduling a model year's production.
Every single car, be it Ka or GT500, is one thing and one thing only - a means to an end, nothing more. So is each lineworker, manager and executive - right up to the CEO. Certain means to certain ends are merely a means to the end of making the primary means to and possible - which is to earn the largest and most durable investment return. Period.
Any business that doesn't operate first and foremost with this in mind exists only by the same good grace that seems to protect children and fools.
Why won't SVT confirm of deny anything? Firstly, because SVT isn't empowered to do a damned thing when it comes to making the cars. It can only pull-up information on a computer screen and see whatever status others have decided to make available to them.
Secondly, but perhaps even more importantly, because the moment SVT "confirms" anything, at best a contract exists - and at worst an expectation it has absolutely NO way of assuring will be met. With no expectation, no opportunity for disappointment exists beyond what the customer himself chooses to conjure.
If you want that deep of an understanding, you'll need to talk to the Harvard MBA folks. But the short version is, within the overall manufacturing constraints, each dealer is an independent territorial monopoly granted in exchange for representing the Ford brand to a particular area. It's not always ideal, and much of it exists ONLY because it's the way things had first been done and simply grew too large to change before many states enacted arcane and anachronistic laws to protect individual franchisees - and prevent makers for changing how cars are sold.
Nobody would create from a blank sheet of paper what exits today, but it's what there is and so be it. As much as Ford may try to enforce uniformity and consistency, customers can have as many unique experiences as there are Ford dealers or even salespeople within them. You're not buying a car from Ford. You're buying a car from the dealer - and any access to allocation or ability to deliver upon its commitment depends entirely upon its willingness to commit only to that which it knows it can guarantee. Period.
You're making presumptions that relationships, accountability and insight exist between departments that may or may not have them. Nowhere from Ford will anybody see SVT named as the point of contact for order information. It's simply become ONE resource that has access to certain amounts of information one person reported one day as being useful, and others have since taken it, and many other presumptions as being gospel.
While Ford agrees to warranty the vehicle under certain terms once you've bought it, ANY AND ALL obligations and responsibilities to you exist only between you and your dealer which, like the cars they sell, are each nothing more than individual means to an end.
And so is every customer - which is why deciding which customers Ford DOESN'T want was every bit as important to its resurgence as making product available to those it does. Some people think the marketing folks' job is to make that sound like each person is the most important on earth. In reality, their even BIGGER job is to make the buyers Ford may not have an interest in serving today want to come back tomorrow when perhaps they may.
For any deeper understanding, you're going to have rely upon more than free advice from an online enthusiast forum. Otherwise, developing a longstanding relationship with a dealer in which you can have a certain degree of trust and buying early when a limited quantity of a product will be built are the best things anybody can do to ensure they're ultimately able to receive the product they want - no matter who they may be.
To leave you with a very simple example of why things are they way they happen to be - if a manufacturer has decided to build X amounts of units after deciding how to maximizing its resources ranging from capital infrastructure and cash flow to employees, supplier capacity and demand, the most expensive vehicle it could produce would be X+1. And unless it can build enough additional units beyond X to derive a sufficient investment return to make building them worthwhile, not a single additional widget is likely to roll off the line.
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