The boardroom of Ford doesn’t have to worry about the future. When that day comes they’ll have long ago deployed their golden parachutes and landed safely on the lawn of their palatial estates.

Neutral - Good god this is dumb and short-sighted. This means that there aren’t going to be any more “entry-level” cars from Ford. If the cheapest thing they have is a Focus Tall (ie, “Active”), you can bet that the lowest-price Ford is going to be $23k. Their Focus hatch already starts at $21k, and I’d be shocked if…

Give me my Kei cars dammit....

All well presented. I just want to add to the harping on federalisation requirements: the idea that Ford will be able to rapidly bring back sedans should they need it in any sort of reasonable timeframe to react to market changes is worrisome. Now, if we had an agreement with European and Japanese regulators we could…

The flip side is that the cheapest Ford is probably going to be $22k+. They’re going to shed market share like crazy, and end up with the exact same problem VW had a decade+ ago, where they had good margins and a shrinking customer base. Remember, that’s when they started redesigning the Jetta to be cheaper, just to…

The natural progression of this type of market retrenchment, is for brands to get more specialized, based on what they sell that is already popular, and culling the models that aren’t popular or profitable.

Excuse me, I do not.

Looks like they need to get into the “store closing” sign business.

I will likely be in the new car market in the next couple years as 30-35k miles a year will take its toll on my little sedan. Thanks Ford for making me choose one of the Japanese models. While I would have preferred the wagon that they won’t sell here, the manual Focus hatchback would have been a competitive choice.…

Well, looking back at what happened to the wagon, and minivans. Kinda have a suspicion it will happen to CUV’s as well. 

Neutral: Ford is being smart in the sense of adapting to market conditions. People are up in arms about it, but honestly, this is the market the North American public created. Us jalops are, unfortunately, not the majority of the new-vehicle buying public. What Ford will do is essentially what Nissan started doing…

After growing up learning to hate Ford (my family despises domestic vehicles in general, since every one we’ve owned has been absolutely shite), I was finally starting to come around and like Ford. They were doing cool things, making cool cars like the Focus RS and the Fiesta ST, and now they’ve gone and ruined it all.

Seems all of this could be solved with a gas tax. Increases the price of gas, that money goes towards better roads, and now you can safely drive your lower clearance higher gas mileage car.

...will their new lack of diversity in their offerings bite them later when market demands change?

If Ford is smart, the vehicles they produce for the European market get certified for the US (or are easily capable of meeting US standards) so that if the oil price shit hits the fan, they can be nimble with new product. But it would still be a while to ramp up, of course.

Neutral: What’s Your Take On The End Of Small Cars And Sedans? 

Neutral: It’s going to come back and bite them in the ass the next time gas prices spike (and they will).

Neutral: I can see the cuts being good for the short term, but long term I don’t think this will be a great idea. Simply because as the kids who have been riding in their parents CUV grow up, they will want anything but that because their parents drive it, and therefore it is uncool.