WC-MAN

NO ITS NOT! Its a horrible terrible CAR! Just ask anyone here who has never owned one! They'll be happy to tell you. Can you imagine if Ford decided the F-150 wasn't worth keeping because they listened to the opinion of Chevy and Dodge buyers!?! The Panthers may not be the cutting edge of tech, but with minor upgrades, bluetooth, sync, etc., they are competent competitors. And they run forever! Don't think that is important? Go to a Jeep site and see how many Cherokee fans traded up to a Liberty. They LIKE the old school look, and Cherokees with the I-6 are infamous for 3 & 400K life-spans. They weren't impressed with the bug-eyed buggy look and un-proven tech of the Liberty. Likewise, there are a lot of OLD panthers still going strong, and I thought reliability was why the Honda and Toyotas were so popular?

Nice list, but for those of us born in the seventies, you would have to include the mid-late seventies Monoco/Fury (of which it seems every single one was crashed on the dukes of hazard), the 80's LTD, and the Caprice Classic. VA State Troopers LOVED the Whales!

AFAIK, Panthers are order only items at LM dealers. In other words, they don't keep them on the lots. Until the ready supply of program cars dries up, its very unlikely that the car will be a big seller on the lots new regardless of its popularity. Hardly unusual. Prior to gas going up, most US brand dealers had a lot of new trucks and SUV's on the lot, and few cars since the used lot was full of program cars that were 1-2 years old and almost 1/2 price. Only after gas went up did the "new car herd" get interested in looking for cars.

the EPA numbers are easy to beat on the highway. I get about 24-25 in mixed driving. In optimal conditions, cruise set on the highway flat roads, I can get as much as 29. I find higher than that doubtful unless you are going downhill. EPA numbers are based on mixed driving, and generally, regardless of the vehicle, seem to involve dragging an anchor. Its the EPA numbers that count though. But the Panther is hardly the darling of CFK. You have to show a 10 mpg gain in a car to get $4,500, again using EPA numbers. That means your car has to have a mixed driving rating of OVER 28 mpg*. In other words, you basically have to be looking at a hybrid, or trading a big car for a compact, which few people actually do (a new 4 cylinder Milan won't make the cut for example). We just took advantage of CFK to replace my wife's Bravada with a Jeep Patriot (Chrysler is where I got the CFK acronym from BTW, and we needed the added 3500 they were offering). I asked, the guy had not taken in ANY panthers. Of the few cars he had seen come in, most were very old Camrys and Accords. But far and away we were in the meat and potatoes of the program. He said at least 5 out of every 6 vehicles they took in were very old, very used SUV's traded for one of the small Jeeps or the Caliber or Avenger. You only need to beat the EPA numbers by 5 mpg if you are buying a truck or SUV. Even though, the program is almost pointless without a deal like Chrysler's. 4,500 sounds like a lot, but small cars are often available for 1/2 price by the time they are 2 years old and only have 24K n them. * I used EPA for a 1999 Grand Marquis for comparison It is important to watch them. They originally were going to count the Patriot as a car. But the EPA classifies it as a light truck.

As long as there are Lincoln-Mercury dealers, there is a place for Mercury. THe current product plan simply eliminates overlap. Mercury builds vehicles that are, by and large, not offered as Lincolns. It allows LM dealers to offer smaller products without diluting the Lincoln brand. It also leaves open the option of offering even smaller products. Think of it, a Miata competitor would be hard to justify as a Lincoln, but makes perfect sense as a Mercury. If Ford goes Chrysler and consolidates all of its lots, Mercury will have no place in the market.

It's not like Toyota hasn't made the same mistake with Scion. Other than tC, the ones I see have the same grey hairs that buy Buick..I mean Toyotas nowadays. Look, GM kept too many brands round for too long. End of story. Imagine if Ford was still trying to sell Continental and Edsil too. Or if Chrysler (who also has too many brands) was still trying to sell Plymouth, AMC, Eagle, & Imperial? GM's brand structure dates back to the 50's when there only truly 3 competitive companies and moving from a Chevy to a Pontiac really represented social climbing. GM kept the brands alive by essentially offering the same vehicles from every brand from the 70's on. GM should have cut Olds and Buick in the 80's, then Pontiac might survive today. They didn't, and apparently Buick has better staying power than Pontiac does.

I like the idea of a mustang based cougar with eco-boost. Mustang would continue to appeal to traditional buyers, while Cougar could target the street-mod market.

Ford Europe doesn't offer one on Mondeo?

No market for the Excursion. Sorry. The heavy towing market is weak and most can use a Super Duty truck with a crew cab.

Jellymoulds, I don't know were you live, but in America almost no car offer an option of air conditioning these days. In fact, a lot of people from up north complain about it. Hybrids are the wave of the future, apparantly by Govt. force if nothing else. SO I agree, it would be good to see it offered on the whole line. I also think Ford needs to act quickly to match GM's Volt, but I would advise trying to adapt the Escape or Fusion to the job rather than coming out with a whole new model. Personally I would love to go Hybrid next time out, but their are few current Hybrids that meet my needs.

So the Taurus is about to give up one of its major advantages for a sloping roofline? That makes sense. My next car needs to seat four tall adults, and I could give a damn about a sloping roofline. I agree with Fords new position, if the government doesn't drive them out of business, they may emerge from this in the drivers seat as THE American car company.

Couldn't hurt. However, you need to hold on to those customers. Those 20-somethings will want something bigger or nicer next time out. The suburban ones will want a bigger vehicle, the urban ones will likely scope out a smallish luxury car. Ford needs to make sure its marketing addresses this. I suggest this tactic for the Edge or Flex, mothers are one of the largest social networking groups. I guess this is okay for women, but I don't see the Fiesta considered a "cool" car for 20-something men.

This was posted today? Even the rags had this out months ago.

Is that the standard paint job? I want red with black stripes. Who knew Daewoo could make such a good looking car.

Here is a stupid idea. Let every company make what ever kind of car they want. Then let the customers vote with their pocketbooks. Companies that do not produce cars people want go out of business, and the ones that do remain. Unfortunately, given this model, Americans have proven they want BIG POWERFUL CARS. Not good for the enviroweenies who put politicians in power. Better that the government produce the cars comrade.

Cut company to Chevy and Cadillac. Maybe sell 1 or 2 Pontiac performance models off Chevy lots.

Saturn makes me laugh. Look at the huge pile of money GM has dumped onto this compost heap. It makes every other failed brand that will come out of GM look like nothing. Even the old brands like Pontiac a least performed at some point. Has Saturn EVER performed. 1. Create unique brand with styling suspiciously close to Oldsmobile. 2. turn Oldsmobile into "Import fighter"with styling even closer to Saturn's 3. Blame Oldsmobile, cancel brand in favor of Saturn. Pay big bucks to Olds dealers. 4. Remove all uniqueness from Saturn, make it a brand that is positioned in the same spot as Pontiac without "sporty :lol: " moniker. 5. Saturn is now Oldsmobile. 6. Olds customers buy Toyota Avalons, find they are a good substitute for Oldsmobiles. 7. Pour new product into Saturn at the expense of Chevy, Pontiac, and Buick. 8. Realize nobody is buying Saturns, import Opels. Few actual Saturn customers will not buy the cars. 9. GM goes bankrupt. 10. Cancel Saturn, blame customers That is a huge amount of money and time wasted when you could have changed Oldmobile's name to Saturn and imported Opels from the start. Step # 8 is the big one. I knew Saturn customers. They liked the L-series cars, even though conventional wisdom said they were crap, and went cold on Saturn the minute the Aura appeared. They acted the same way when the ION became Astra. Nobody I knew who owned a Saturn wanted an Astra. Price is important. Saturn customers were lured to an ECONOMY car company. When Saturn became Oldsmobile, it abandoned its old format for the "just a bit more expensive than a chevy for no reason" format which has served GM so freakin' well.

Must mean ugly. If the future of cars is they all must look like a suppository for an elephant, I guess I'll be scouring the country for used Panthers the rest of my life.

To play devil's advocate. What about the retirees of the COUNTLESS OTHER industries that have gone out? WHy do auto workers deserve to be treated different from other industry workers? Face the facts, if supporting the employees, union or otherwise, cost more than the business can make, the business will fail. Of course, that is why GM and Chrysler should have entered bankruptcy and renegotiated all of this garbage. I live 10 miles from the Tennessee Eastman (or the Big E as we call it). I have uncles who worked their entire careers there and did not get the retirement they deserved, the retirement the men before them got, the retirement they paid into their entire careers. Its true, its not fair, but that is the way business works. Its not always fair. And its not fair to expect GM to honor deals forged when they controlled 60% of the market and sold more Impalas than Chrysler sold cars. It amazes the hell out of me that Toyota and Honda can make a profit on small cars and GM cannot. As for Fox News, they are a cable news station in a competitive market with a formula that works. Instead of getting mad at what they say, how about offering them proof its not true?

Look at Chrysler and how stretching a platform to fit two sizes worked. It didn't. Too many compromises. And the D3 is not a good platform to shorten.

Just a mild redesign would make the panther very competitive with the Chrysler (if they hold on) as a RWD alternative to a sea of FWD cars. Okay, the design is a bit dated, some of us don't feel the last 10 years have been the pinnacle of design anyhow. Most of the "outdatedness" of the panther is by design. Where is the mp3 interface. Is that really that expensive to add that to the car? Why can better transmissions be designed for RWD trucks but not the Panther? We can put rollover protection on everything else, but not the panther. The fact is, at least in my area, the biggest opponents to the demise of the Panther are Lincoln Mercury dealerships, who rely on program panthers for a lot of sales. Ford has done this before. Anybody remember vehicles with names like Thunderbird (the 90's model) or Probe? These cars were left on the lot with almost no support and few upgrades for years, then dropped because they were outdated and not selling. If the last F-150 complete redesign was over a decade ago, would it sell well? I think not. Ford could take the car, convert the frame to modern running gear, redesign the body panels and interior, and have a hit for a fraction of a clean sheet redesign.

Hummer is quite possibly the biggest example of runaway greed of the 1990's. Sure, it was born of a simple idea, offer AG's Humvee in civilian form as a sort of ultra-macho luxury vehicle. But then the "no SUV is big enough" movement hit and GM couldn't resist wading pell-mell into the fray by creating a vehicle line for a market that simply did not exist. Once the fad faded and gas shot up, Hummer was doomed. My question is, why would anyone want it? Its a brand that is the poster child for excess, whose entire lineup is proprietary to GM, and the military connection is quickly disappearing. Better to let it die.

How can you be sure that the Accord won't burst into flames if its plowed into by a vehicle doing 60 MPH?

Because the Escape is close in size and ability to the Edge. The idea would be that Kuga would attract the 4-cyl Escape crowd while the 6-cyl AWD buyers would opt for the Edge. The other thing would be capturing Focus shoppers who are cross-shopping vehicles like the Rouge.

I generally think "you poor fool."