If you become angry enough with Ford, fund me to buy one of Ford’s products. Almost every purchase I make seems to cause the manufacturer to drop the product or go out of business. I used to drive American Motors products. American Motors went out of business. I bought an Oldsmobile, and GM dropped that division. I bought a Homelite power motor and Homelite sold its mower division to another company and I have a hard time even getting a mower blade. I built a house and had a Clare gas furnace installed. Clare no longer makes a gas furnace and I have been advised that parts are hard to get. I bought a Chevrolet Uplander last year and I now here that GM may drop its minivans. I just hope I never need an organ transplant, because there are probably no donor organs that fit old dumb Swedes.
Just move to a state that has repealed its motorcycle helmet laws. They have more donated organs than states with helmet laws.
I don’t think Craig is familiar with the internal workings of the Ford motor company, and bad marketing decisions made 50 years ago by a different group of managers has no relationship with market-wide decisions made in recent years to get away from hatchbacks and wagons. Just look at the line-ups of all the major automobile manufacturers and compare them to the line-ups from ten years ago. You will see fewer hatchbacks and wagons. So it really comes as no suprise that Ford is making the same changes that Honda and Toyota have made.
I think the trend goes something like this: As each model becomes more popular, they make it bigger. This has happened with just about every car. It allows people to stick with the same make and model over the years as their vehicle needs change throughout their lives. Then the smallest vehicle gets so big that they need to make a new small car for the younger generation to grow with. This has happened most noticeably with the Honda Civic and the Honda Accord. The Accord used to be a small econobox car, but it grew over the years. In the 1990s the Civic was as large as the 1980s Accord. Then after 2000, the Civic grew until it was no longer be a compact car. Now it is more like a mid-sized car and the Accord is a large sedan. So Honda came out with the Fit, a small four-door hatchback. So the Honda Civic hatchback that I looked at in 1999 isn’t made any more. In fact, the new hatchbacks all have four doors. The only new two-door cars that I can find are coupes. The market changes, and automobile manufacturers either respond to change or they foster change. Either way, the market is changing and there is nothing you or I can do to change it.
The Edsel was a decision that was made in spite of the market. Rather, it was made when Ford had more control of the market. These days, the automobile market is very different than it was when the Edsel was made. Ford doesn’t control the market anymore and if it doesn’t learn to follow the market better, it will soon no longer exist.
Since gasoline prices have increased, companies like Scion, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota have added new hatchbacks to their line-ups. If you have your heart set on a hatchback, check them out. If you want some towing capacity, look at the Toyota Tacoma and other small rear wheel drive pick-up trucks. If you want the space of a wagon, look at car-based SUVs like the Honda CR-V. I am sure that Ford, Chrylser, and GM have comparable models to the ones that I have mentioned. The market is changing, but there are still so many choices out there that there is no reason to limit yourself to a single make, especially if it no longer suits your needs.
“I think the trend goes something like this: As each model becomes more popular, they make it bigger. This has happened with just about every car. It allows people to stick with the same make and model over the years as their vehicle needs change throughout their lives. Then the smallest vehicle gets so big that they need to make a new small car for the younger generation to grow with.”
I never did understand that approach, the domestics seem to have used it for years, and the ricers have seemed to copy it in recent years. I guess they assume that there customers won’t notice that their favorite car has evolved into something completely different.
The best domestic example was the ford t-bird that was actually a pretty nice little car at one point, then it turned into geezer mobile, now they seem to have some kind of plastic retro-thing with that name. I saw an accord the other day and was surprised how much it’s grown. I remember when it was a nice little rip-off the the 3-series bwm, now it’s trying to be something else. I guess, they are just trying to build whatever they think their market wants.