08-01-06: Wow. Ford has been on a free-fall all year. They have been losing market share faster than a drunk squandering his paycheck at a casino. The latest numbers posted for July of 2006 show another 34% drop in sales over last year.

Granted this isn’t really news. Ford has been telling us all about their plight in the Bold Moves video documentary and the saga has been playing out in the news forever now. They say they are aware of the dire state of affairs and have been telling us for some time that they are reinventing themselves.

Well, as a long time fan of the company and its products I want for this to be true. I want it badly. I root for them whenever I can do so with an honest hand. But while there is much to wage the argument that things are turning around, that the thinking and mindset that got them into this mess is being eradicated, there is still evidence to wonder if everyone in Dearborn really gets it.

Today, the day that another bad month of sales was chronicled, Ford also proudly announced that it’s European Ford S-Max is setting the world on fire (The world outside the United States that is ). They trumpeted the fact that the revolutionary model is not only selling like hot-cakes but is bringing new customers into Ford’s European dealerships from other brands. That would be kind of like what Honda and Toyota are doing here.

The logical assessment is, “Why don’t they sell cars like that here?” Unfortunately, all signals point to the notion that nobody in Dearborn seems to share that kind of thinking. No, the latest spy photos on the internet show yet another band-aid facelift for the old worn out 1999 Focus. There are even stories about a coupe version and other engineering refinements. Why Ford is spending another dime on this out-dated, poor selling car I have no idea.

In the competitive small car marketplace, most young people think the American Focus is “lame” and wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Savvy “Consumer Reports” shoppers don’t even consider the car to be on the same level as even a Hyundai or Kia. They are right. The current Focus is about as cool as grandmother’s handbag. In case anyone at Ford is reading this I have a hot tip; Cool cars are what’s selling. People will pay anything for them.

The Focus has been spoiled milk now for at least 3 years. A bold grille and chrome taillights aren’t going to change that fact.

As the automotive media and I have said many times, Ford is building a world class range of cars in Europe, Asia and now in China. The Ford Focus the rest of the world gets is based on the same platform as the highly acclaimed Mazda 3 and Volvo S-40. It's a premium small car. But American buyers get spoiled milk until at least 2010 so the rumor is. Why are premium cars good for the rest of the planet, but our home market can only have low rent crap?

This is exactly the thinking that has gotten Ford where they are.

They claim the production costs of building the new generation Focus here are too high. How so? Mazda does just fine selling the same car here. So the MSRP might have to be higher. People will pay more for a premium car. They do it at Honda and Toyota dealers all day long. You folks at Ford might peek at the sales figures over at Honda and Toyota, they are cleaning your clock with those more costly premium cars.

If I were in charge of product I'd be calling the “Badge & Emblem Department.” I would be ordering some blue ovals for the Mazda 3 and Mazda 5 planning to have them in Ford showrooms by Christmas. That, or I’d be ordering a duplicate set of tooling for the European Ford Focus and S-Max to be built somewhere in the Americas for the home market.

That would be a lot wiser in the long run than wasting my valuable engineering capacity designing an expensive facelift for yesterday's car that nobody likes now and nobody is ever going to like.