Both this month's Car and Driver and Automobile have good editorials about the Ford thing. I suggest you check them out. Eddie Alterman of C&D calls out my main man Mullaly for dumping all the luxury brands which made it much harder to make a profit on their platforms. He says leaving Ford as the sole (healthy) brand resulted having to charge more for new platforms in order to make a profit, hurting sales. That's an interesting angle I hadn't thought of. Even Mercury COULD have helped them make a profit if they'd handled it better.

Jamie Kitman of Automobile talks about the usual stuff like artificially cheap gas, and the neutering of the EPA. Does anyone actually believe the government WON'T change parties every few years? It's just so stupid. CAFE standards are GOING to come back! It's not even a question!

People are fickle. He makes a VERY good point that people could EASILY come to see crossovers as they started to see minivans in the '90s. Then what would they do?! And what about the enthusiast market that they had just won back with cars like the STs and SHO? You really think you're going to steer them ALL into Mustangs?! If they wanted Mustangs, they would buy Mustangs! Favor with the compact market is especially delicate. If you lose it with them, it's like the kiss of death. That's why it pisses me off so much when magazine award stupid intangible points the incumbents like the GTI in comparison tests such that they win by a nose. You can't do that, or the newcomers never have a chance! I know it's supposed to be subjective, but they have to realize that they have a certain responsibility too.

Anyway, all i can say is, they'd better damn well have a contingency plan like importing cars from Europe or something. Yes Ford, we still know about the great cars in Europe. Just like we did before you brought them to us 7 years ago.