Anyone remember the way that American car companies have been in free fall for the last several years? It turns out that at least one of those companies was even more clueless than we all suspected. I will not speak of GM here, because one can argue that there are separate companies involved or something. That isn't really the point. The point here is that Ford Motor Company is entirely capable of making something that is not a large truck. I know it is hard to believe, but you are going to have to trust me on this one. Alternatively, you could trust wikipedia instead. Or, I could take pictures of real cars that exist here in Germany. Anyway, why Ford is run by idiots.
As I am sure most of you recall, Ford has only recently admitted that, yes in fact, they are capable of making the small car that Americans have been giving all of their money to Honda and Toyota to have. Personally, I own a Hyundai and am very pleased with its small stature and turning radius, and it isn't even a subcompact. They even make a smaller one that I could buy, if I wanted to. Getting back to Ford, they have not made anything that might even be optimistically called "small" since 1997. The Focus might be in the compact class, but it is gigantic in comparison to real compact cars, my Korean one for example (an easy comparison for me to make, since my car is often parked next to my sister's Focus.) In the very near future, Ford will be re-releasing the Fiesta to the United States.
This is where I try to avoid thinking about this too hard. Ford has been selling the Fiesta in the rest of the world since the seventies. Americans stopped buying Fords because they only sold us huge vehicles that guzzled fuel. This seems as though it would have been a no-brainer to just add the Fiesta to the American market. A small, fuel-efficient car would have sold like crazy due to high gas prices and American Patriotism. If this would be the only source of Ford's stupidity, I might be able to forgive them. It gets worse.
In addition to the Fiesta, Ford also sells a model called the "Ka" in Europe. This car is even smaller than the Fiesta and also gets 46mpg. They have been selling this car in the rest of the world since 1996. Again, this seems like it might be obvious, but it isn't to them. After doing some research, I found out that the Ka will not be joining the Fiesta in the US because Ford has deemed it too small to succeed in America. (http://www.egmcartech.com/2009/11/09/mulally-ford-ka-and-new-ford-ranger-not-coming-to-u-s/) A car that is American Made and gets 46mpg does not exist. It could exist, but Ford decided that it doesn't want it to exist. Advertise it as Red, White, Blue and Green and you would make a killing. Why they are not doing this is beyond me and I am going to avoid thinking about it too hard, for fear that my brain might explode out of confusion.
Ugh. I feel bad that the people that have the misfortune of working for Ford are being by people that are so out of touch with what people want. Hopefully those poor people can get other jobs before the company is crushed by the weight of a million unsold explorers and F150s.
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I understand that idea in the past, but you'd think they'd take the recession as a hint to jump the pond with that idea.
ReplyDelete-Ivory
I agree with you. Both Kevin and I owned Fiestas when we met in 1982. Mine was a 1979, and was one of the first Fiestas. I think it was made in Germany and was a great car. They stopped selling them here after a few years. Should I forward your email to Mark Johanneck?
ReplyDeleteHi Marc, I do agree with you and I have been wondering about this for several years. The answer I found floating around was that they had figured out that there was more profit in offering the larger more expensive vehicles. I had no idea they had smaller cars available to Europeans. Hm-m. Anyway, there are two additional facts that have surfaced fairly recently. First Ford did not take any help from the federal govt. when it was available and now they are reporting a 40% increase in sales this year compared to 8% for GM. That sounds like they may be doing something right.
ReplyDeleteIt's stunts like this that make me decide to keep buying foreign cars. I want a dinky little car, and if Ford withholds it from the American market, it makes me disloyal. No sales for you.
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