25 June 2007

Further Idiocy From Ford


Courtesy of Bloomberg -

Ford Motor Co. thinks it finally has a chance to crack the small-car market, and not a moment too soon.

This fall Ford will begin selling the second generation of the Focus, a compact that hasn't fared well against some of the stiffest competition in the auto world. The new model, available with an optional interactive speech-recognition system developed with Microsoft Corp. and called Sync, will have to offer young shoppers a clear advantage over a Honda or Toyota, aside from a discounted price.

I swear, my head is about to explode Scanners style if I have to read any more shit like this from retarded automakers.

'A chance to crack the small-car market' ??? How idiotic is that statement? Ford CRACKED the small-car market back in 2000 with the original Ford Focus. It was class leading, it looked great for the time, it hit all the right buttons, it was a quantum leap over the Escort/Contour that it replaced in the lineup. It was an honest to goodness valid and in a lot of cases, BETTER alternative to the Civic, Corolla, Sentra, et al. And they shit the bed by not updating it significantly for almost EIGHT YEARS. Absolutely shit the bed. No ifs, ands, or buts. And now they're touting this new Focus as some sort of 'chance' vehicle for them.

The best part about all this? It's still not an all new Ford Focus! It's still riding the same platform, while the Mazda 3 gets all the latest goodies.

Incredible.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Also, it doesn't sound like a lot of self confidence coming from Ford, when they say, "might have a chance to crack the small car market." I mean, talk about striving for mediocrity - we "might crack the market," not we "expect to have a successful model."

At least they're being realistic, I guess...instead of the perennial "just wait - the really good stuff is two years away."

Anonymous said...

Ahem, it was Bloomberg's words not Ford's. Who actually said the comment? Site the person, not jsut say "Ford said"

Bt they way, the Escort was the #1 car in the mid 80's. They had the small car market, then lost it.

tomcatt630@yahoo.com