rmc523

I do too. The Verve is MUCH better looking than any other b-car offering. I like the grille they gave our US version.

I think that's a good picture of the Mondeo. It shows/accents the vehicle's profile and character lines.

I like the vehicle too. I think they did a good job with it. I also believe it will destroy the other b segment offerings when it debuts.

Yes, that is part of it. It's the first stage/step in the plan to return to profitability and eventually increase production again, etc.....

I thought about adding that, but didn't. I was going to continue by saying Ford's dealers are cannibalizing themselves by over 'covering.' The customer 'radius' of each dealer overlaps with each other. This as you said, causes fewer sales at each dealer, resulting in lower profit, less finacially sound, weaker dealers. Ford, as it is doing with the rest of it's operations is trying to cut out the excess dead weight, and will do this with it's dealer network. It will slowly trim out the struggling dealers until it sees fit.

Thanks. This reminds me of a poster's (can't remember who) signature, that mentions the Bronco and says we wnated to get rid of the criminal association with the Bronco, here's the Escape.

I agree. As Michael Reynolds said, I don't think Lincoln is quite stable enough to keep all the dealers it now has open, let alone open new ones.

As you said, it's always the same people.

Our local Lincoln-Mercury dealer closed down a few years ago (became a Honda dealer). A few months ago another local Ford dealer merged/consolidated with a Lincoln-Mercury dealer. Ford is still trying to make their dealer network smaller. They still have too many dealers.

I remember reading about this "Special Edition" package somewhere a while back. That update here would bring the Panther right back into the new Ford NA lineup!! We need that here NOW and bring the CV back to retail, that would light up the sales charts. [/sarcasm]

I'm sure you know this, you may have just used it as an example of what's already being done, but Austrailia's I6 is already being phased out. I believe it's being replaced by our 3.5, IIRC.

But it is the Escape.

I'd say you're probably right, that does happen many times (smaller high end vehicles going for more than larger low end versions).

I think that'd be a good place to take Focus styling.

It's already done that. Of course, that wasn't too difficult to do, either.

Thanks.

LOL FREESTYLE......sorry couldn't resist.

You mean the F-150's 6-speed would narrow the gap? I agree, it could bring them closer in actual performance.

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/application..._LotNumber=1331 They're just the pictures Chrysler released a while back. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching at that time.

And then they tried to further confuse people a year later with the Freestyle.

I definitely responded to this earlier. All I said is that I'm not really sure how it works, but I did respond. Are posts being deleted, because this happened to me on another thread as well (I think at least).

I was gonna say, nobody is buying those anyways. I think it'd be a nice offering. I think, of course getting the core Ford equivalent (F-100) up and running would be a priority of course before they worried about a Mercury equivalent.

Wouldn't it be cool if they made a surprise announcement that the diesel and 6.2 would be available at launch?

And I thought the 8 foot beds looked long, think of how a 9/10 foot bed would look.

Hmmm....