97 F350

Of course they still need Opel. What else are they going to re-badge as Buicks? And Cadillacs. And Chevy's.

For some reason, the concept reminds me of a tarted-up PT Crusier.

I read this topic headline as Cadillac was having weatherstripping problems or something..........

Was it the same daughter as the Drunk Hoff Hamburger episode of a few years back?

No! The Hoff Rules!!!! http://www.geocities.com/davidhasselhoffrules/index.html

Just like why the Titan sold so well. It could kick the F-series tail 0-60, so it must be better. Motor Trend said so. :shades:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=ag_pJ.iH.W30

But the real question is - will it kick the E-Series butt in 0-60? :shades:

I think a lot of this is perception. They had a lot of holes in their lineup, so when they fill one - it's a cool new product, not an update of the same old one they sold last year. Just imagine the news if they came out with a full-size pickup line. But it would get Motor Trend truck of the year and Edmunds would bow down and proclaim that no more F-series would ever be sold now. All because it was a brand new vehicle and the Koreans can do no wrong right now. Also - they have what 3-4% of the market? So if you are selling say 35,000 cars a month (just a wild-ass guess). If you sell 5000 more in a month - think of the headlines - SALES UP 15%!!!!!!!. When Ford (150,000 a month for instance) it would be an increase of 3% - whup-di-do per the headlines. Actually this all reminds me of Mitsubishi a few years back. If you had a pulse, they would give you a car - and their sales were going gangbusters - huge % increases, great headlines, second wave of Japanese takeovers - US automakers were doomed - then reality hit. Nobody they loaned to could pay for their cars - the hidden defects - BOOM. Now besides the Evo, I can't even picture what a current Mitsubishi vehicle looks like. I think in about 5 or 6 years, there will be a Chinese car company selling here. (or Tata) and we will have the same thing - taking over the world, huge year-over-year increases in sales - doom and gloom for the domestics - great reviews by the press. Just the flavor of the year.

Wasn't that Ed Whiteacre - the new Chairman of the board that said that? He's been throwing a lot of quotes around lately.

Doesn't seem to matter whether it's dark or light, but blue paint doesn't seem to hold up as well as the other colors. And it's seems to be across brands - not any one in particular. Why?

Cool. I agree with you. I think it's a waste of taxpayer money also. (admittedly, I looked heavily into using it - if my grandkids are going to be paying it off, I might as well be one of the ones to get the benefit - but it didn't make $ sense for us) I was just adding to your post about why the clunker cash money wasn't going to be taxed to the people buying new cars - in addition to it being expressly prohibited by the bill, there are other tax rules that would stop it from being income.

Actually it's only $124M attributable to income taxes. The other $90M is to Non-Controlling Interests per the earnings release. Since there 10Q has not been filed yet, I could only go with the earnings release and there is not further breakdown. Several things could be in the $124 million. Could be foreign taxes paid. They made money in a couple of regions and even if they lost in a region, could have made money in individual countries within that region. Could be state income taxes. The way cost are allocated among states and individual subsidiaries could have all kind of effects. Could have been any number of other items hitting this. Some reductions in their DTA's (Deferred Tax Assets) for a multitude of reasons (expiring credits, carryforwards, etc). That number is not a straight 35% x Net Income calculation. It is actually a very twisted, cumbersome and nauseating calculation due to the insane number of tax laws passed by your Congress. Ford can carry forward their losses just like any other corporation. They will get the tax benefit in future years when they turn a profit. The thing that is wrong in this is that the type of reorg that GM had was basically a sale. Long story short. When you buy a company that has tax losses you can't carry the tax losses forward to the purchaser. In order to keep the tax attributes, the old bad GM would have to be the surviving corporation - which it wasn't under the shampoo, rinse repeat bankruptcy they got. So just like Barry canned Wagonner, just like he was able to blow off secured creditors and trash decades of bankruptcy law, he now was able to rig the tax code through the bankruptcy process. There are a lot of very bad precedence's being set that we will be seeing play out in the next few years. The Laws of Unintended Consequences is going to be a real bitch. That's actually pretty funny.

Beat me to it. But there are other reasons it is not income. The main one - for the customer it is essentially a jacked-up trade in price. (not the same for the dealer where it is essentially a down payment) And trade-ins aren't subject to income tax unless you actually get more than you paid for the vehicle - which would be pretty rare.

I found the inspiration for this truck............................

It's going to cut into the steady train of cars I see every day going to Mexico. Higway 59 South goes down to the Valley. And on my way home daily, I pass 10-20 caravans of used cars - 2 to 3 at a time tied together by towbars - on their way. I wonder how big a hit these guy will have when 250,000 of their pool of cars goes away.

So basically they are just getting back to the Taurus's roots. Going after the big boys with a more mainstream car.

That was our case. 01 Windstar with 128,000 miles. Body and interior were in great shape. Wife was sad when she found out it would be destroyed -shame since it was not a heap of junk. Since we were looking at seven seaters- we were only going to qualify for th $3500 rebate. We ended up not doing the clunker thing and instead traded it in basically for a 4 year ESP warranty and the TT&L on an 06 Freestyle. Clunker bill would have give us about $1000 more for the van, but our payments would be twice what they are. And someone can still get good miles out of our van as all it needs is a power steering pump, front brakes, and a driver window motor.

Kinda ironic. Isn't it what Lexus and Infiniti did to Mercedes, BMW, et al about 20 years ago? Now they are the "establishment" and Ford and Hyundai are the upstarts. Also - when the original Taurus came out in the 80's - didn't the designers benchmark it against German vehicles. I seem to remember stories about how they dissassembled Mercedes cars to figure out what made them so desirable and then tried to duplicate it.

Good idea till the end. Buybacks are a waste of money. Pay off debt or throw in back into product development. Both would help stockholders more long term. Only get a short-term bounce from a buyback. There are a lot of companies that wish they had the money right now that they spent propping up their stock over the last few years only to watch it crater anyway. Didn't Ford do like a $5 billion buyback a few years ago - just think if they had redesigned the Taurus instead of letting it languish.

Actually the discussion is - should the Mustang always have a V8. Then you chimed in with: That is what I replied to, so it is quite the same. Now you have since backpedaled some from your initial position. And I do think that "giving" a kid ANY car (not just a Mustang) is an issue. If a kid works hard and earns his/her own vehicle - I think there is NO irresponsibility factor on the parent. In fact just the opposite. Plus odds are, if the kid is paying for it, not many burger-flipping jobs pay enough these days to drop 50g on a Super Snake. In all likelihood, it will be a four or six banger. But if they found a used GT and restored it themselves to safe driving condition - no problem. (Of course - they are also going to be paying for insurance - all part of the deal) Not sure what someone in a Mustang did to you in the past that you have such a hatred for this one car. It is just as appropriate a first vehicle as many other cars out there. Or do you also go to Honda boards and say the Crx and Civic are inappropriate vehicles for kids? After all, slap a nitrous kit on them and with their under 2000 lbs weight - you can blow the doors off a Lambo. Just ask anybody on a tuner forum and they will all tell you they have all done this. What exactly is your ideal first car? Is it the Sable? I would worry about that one - my uncle had either a 92 or a 94 Taurus. He was driving it in and at a light saw smoke coming out from under the hood and pulled into a parking lot to watch it burn up. Now would a 16 year old going highway speed know how to handle a car-be-cue? So in other words, we should listen to the back-seat driver on how we need to raise our children? Did the kids who needed a public defender get in that position because of the Mustangs they drove? Or was it by chance their environment growing up, or the parents who weren't around, or the poverty they grew up in? Nope gotta be the &*$% Mustangs that did it.

Good grief. Another know-it-all telling everyone else how to raise their kids. Since you are such a parenting authority, how many have you raised to be successful adults? A good example of a kid getting a Mustang as there first car is a kid who gets a job and buys it themself. Or restores an old Mustang. They will take far better care than a kid who gets one as a gift. I don't think kids should be "given" cars in the first place. If one of my daughters gets a job and works her tail off and wants to buy a Mustang, I will help her get the best deal she can. Or if one of them actually helps me when I am working on rebuilding one of my Mustangs - she might be able to earn her way into it. None of them is guaranteed a car just for residing under my roof. If they need to get somewhere, they will. If they "want" to - then we will talk. My first car was a 80' Mercury Capri. Second car I bought when the Merc rusted out my junior year in high school was a Renault Encore. I did a lot more stupid things in the French tin can than I did in the Merc. Is it safer to give a kid an Explorer or 4x4 that can be flipped easier? I am constantly amazed at how people drive these vehicles - they think they are in a sports car and then sue Ford when the vehicle rolls. It depends entirely on how you raise your kids and on the kids individual personality. I have one daughter who is incredibly responsible and cautious. Her sister is the complete opposite - dives off the top bunk, can't keep track of anything unless it is tied to her. All this will be factored into the equation when they are looking for vehicles. Not some silly edict by the Grand Poobah of Holy Governmental Temple of Parental Wisdom. :rolleyes: Oh, and to get this thread back on track. There should ALWAYS be a choice of a V-8 in a Mustang. Otherwise you have a Probe and that was such a success. :rolleyes:

This makes sense as like I said - Toyota, Honda, Nissan even BMW lots are absolutely stuffed - barely anyplace for customers to park. Is this part of Ford's way of right-sizing their dealer network without the bad PR way that GM and Chrysler did? I understand the need to cut floor plan costs - but wouldn't Ford's competitors be subject to the same pressure? And interesting aside - ignoring the CJD dealer that closed a month ago, only two of the probably 25 dealers I pass daily have closed recently. A Mazda that had a location for years, built a nice pretty new dealership about two blocks north, had a grand opening and then closed within the month. And a Hyundai dealership that is about 2 years old. A salesman from the F/L/M dealer next door said they bought the location - wonder if they are going to split out Lincoln/Mercury as they barely have any on their lot.

So the movie is what caused this truck to fade into obscurity. I'm thinking the Shelbys etc. are going to get a run for their money at Barrett Jackson's................................... not. Seriously - never heard or seen this and I live in Texas - that hotbed of Toyata truck-ness. :rolleyes:

Was there really such a thing??? Any pics? Never seen or heard of this.