You're a failing American auto giant. What do you do?

You continue your proud tradition of failure by introducing still another vehicle that represents the very caricature of, well, your proud tradition of failure:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/12/news/fortune500/ford/index.htm?cnn=yes

Ford's newest SUV is B-I-G: Report

Newspaper says automaker will unveil a large sports utility vehicle tentatively called "Everest."
December 12, 2005: 2:09 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - According to a newspaper report, Ford is set to launch a new, super-size SUV.

Just two months after it pulled the plug on the massive Ford Excursion, the Detroit News said the automaker is preparing to unveil a vehicle tentatively called the "Ford Everest."

"Excursion was just too much. It went overboard," Joe Langley, and analyst with CSM Worldwide, told the newspaper. "But there's still a market for a (jumbo) SUV."

The Excursion, launched in 2000, was quickly dubbed the Ford Valdez by critics; and Ford (down $0.02 to $8.16, Research) ended production earlier this year as gas prices topped $3 a gallon.

-----------------------------------------------------

You are about to lose 30,000 gamepieces, err, employees, in a market where your company is being punished by the enemy: foreign corporations that have focused on reliability and economy instead of building vehicles with names like "Stegasaurus/XS" or "VelociTee+". What do you do? You're an AMERICAN company, by Gawd - you make a bigger twuck.

and there you have it... a new patriotic corporation. It gets me all choked up its so beeeuuuutiful.

so they upgrade the truck for x amount of dollars then triple the cost to the buyer and then rebate them 10-15%. they sell 25,000 or so--it`s called a cash cow. meanwhile they still make money on the commercial trucks.

who would buy a vehicle that gets about 9 miles per gallon? And all the commercials with women driving it? I think it's more like male compensation....

well never mind, I still wouldn't want to drive one of those stupid things.

Anyway, Hummer, I don't know, sounds kind of gay to me.

To me it screams, "I have a small penis, so I'm going to drive a ridiculous car to make myself feel better about it."

So I guess I am the kind of person that buys them.

They keep phasing out their most popular car lines(escort, ranger) because it costs the same to make them, but they can supercharge the sticker price on the big crap. Edsel should have been running this company since the 90's, but we got the bartender.

say it isnt so.

Doesn't the idea of creating an energy efficient, reliable, affordable commuter vehicle resonate anywhere within the American auto industry? I know, I know, buyers are still after SUV's and/or performance autos. But American auto buyers are still largely blissfully ignorant of near/mid/long-term effects of oil prices and availability. Such ignorance isn't bliss, it's damning.

If an American manufacturer were to have the temerity to look beyond sales figures for the past three years and begin promoting a highly fuel efficient, reliable, affordable commuter vehicle, they may have a chance. Given some of the projections for light sweet crude oil production in the near future, they may have an out of the park home run. More likely however, they have been robotically welded to a marketing structure guaranteed to wield enormous profit in the near term and certain failure shortly thereafter.

They do not think long term. Quarterly profits rule, because investors must be pleased quarterly at all costs. Lower management and middle management are mostly gypsies working on their resumes. Engineers too.

Management is only concerned about 1, maybe 2 quarters down the road at the most. Who needs big plans and vision when you're profitable in the here and now?

....will this new monstrosity guzzle? :eyes:

thugs like to piss and moan about cutting food stamps, medicare, school lunch, financial aid etc. to curb the deficit (bullshit), when it is really corporate welfare that sucks the coffers dry. All of these personal accountability types only want the citizenry of our country to be personally accountable yet every time a company makes a bad choice or even suffers bad luck, the gov't bails them out. In this global economy, what is good for GM is no longer good for America! They fuck up the environment...we get the bill, they outsource good jobs...we have to go without, it's nothing but socialism for the corporation while the teeming masses are left to cope with the free market system....free market my ass, Adam Smith would be spinning in his grave!:rant:

Based upon the title of your post I thought you were just looking for ideas...and the first thing that jumped into my mind, and what I was going to post, was: "well, the first thing I'd do in 2005 is stop producing SUV's"

I just don't know what to say. I'm literally speechless (and that happens very very rarely, believe me).

We always do.

can be so 'contrary' to major manufacturers? I have worked in the R&D lab of a major (non-automotive) American manufacturer for several years. Don't try to tell me Ford/GM/Chrysler don't have the engineering capacity and or resources to begin producing the VW of the Twenty-Oughts within two to three years. Detroit could get Japan and Korea running to keep pace, instead of making it, with only a nod from the Marketers.

Of course they are businesses, driven by profit, obeisant to the shareholder. But the current tradewinds might suggest a strong shift in strategy toward less petroleum-dependency, in personal transport and elsewhere.

all who need it. 2. I would have my engineers analyze the Japanese cars to find out why they are more reliable than ours. 3. I would try to persuade all car makers to jointly cut back on the massive advertising so as to lower the prices and 4. I would move toward more fuel efficient designs.

all who need it. 2. I would have my engineers analyze the Japanese cars to find out why they are more reliable than ours. 3. I would try to persuade all car makers to jointly cut back on the massive advertising so as to lower the prices and 4. I would move toward more fuel efficient designs.

all who need it. 2. I would have my engineers analyze the Japanese cars to find out why they are more reliable than ours. 3. I would try to persuade all car makers to jointly cut back on the massive advertising so as to lower the prices and 4. I would move toward more fuel efficient designs.

all who need it. 2. I would have my engineers analyze the Japanese cars to find out why they are more reliable than ours. 3. I would try to persuade all car makers to jointly cut back on the massive advertising so as to lower the prices and 4. I would move toward more fuel efficient designs.

"Soon they'll be breeding us like cattle! You've got to warn everyone and tell them! Soylent green is made of people! You've got to tell them! Soylent green is people!"


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

is to increase profits by reducing costs so that it is to the disadvantage of the workers - ie lower wages, reduce labor rights and environmental protection - has no right to exist.

they could go with Canyonero. Thanks to The Simpsons they won't even have to worry about what song to use in the advertisements.





Can you name the truck with four wheel drive,
smells like a steak and seats thirty-five..

Canyonero! Canyonero!

Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down,
It's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown!

Canyonero! (Yah!) Canyonero!
Hey Hey

The Federal Highway comission has ruled the
Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving.

Canyonero!

12 yards long, 2 lanes wide,
65 tons of American Pride!

Canyonero! Canyonero!

Top of the line in utility sports,
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!

Canyonero! Canyonero! (Yah!)

She blinds everybody with her super high beams,
She's a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine!

Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!)

Drive Canyonero!

Woah Canyonero!

Woah!

"make more SUVs!" after reading your subject line - of course it would have been :sarcasm:

oh well. :crazy:

that much to turn out an SUV version of it, so it probably makes sense from some point of view to do this. Just like Toyota Tundra/Sequoia, Nissan big-pickup-whatever/Armada, Ford F-150/Expedition... Sounds like they are just resurrecting the Excursion (F-250) with a new name, and it is probably very very profitable if they can sell enough of them.

I'd personally rather see something other than station wagon bodies on truck frames, but I'm not holding out much hope for Detroit, since I suspect they really want to have an excuse to fire all the Union workers here, get gov't pension relief laws passed, and then open new plants in China or Mexico. In the meantime, I suspect it's "milk the cash cows."