Why is “America’s Car Company” in intensive care?
Back in 1928, when former President Herbert Hoover said, “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage,” you could have bet that that car was a Ford.
A Ford just reeked of the American lifestyle. But today, more and more Americans are driving foreign cars, and they’re driving them for one very good reason — they’re simply a better product.
I mean, look around Boston University’s campus, how many Fords do you see? How many American-made cars do you see? Okay, maybe that’s not a fair question, considering I walked by the School of Management today and saw four BMWs parked next to each other, all the same color (black of course).
No one, however, can deny that there are major changes occurring in American driveways. Oh, and by the way, expect this to happen with other industries too, but for now back to Ford…
Well, our story takes us back many, many years. All the way back to the 1990s when the Ford Motor Company was actually making money, and they had managed to make quite a bit of it, roughly some $40 billion.
This money went into the SUV and pick-up truck sectors of the company, while focusing little attention on the car end.
Big mistake, for this is where foreign car companies (not surprisingly) have gained the most ground. Today, some Ford cars are now not even built on their own platforms.
Ladies and gentlemen, the future of the automaker is grim. Ford faces many problems. With Ford stock falling below $10, it is definitely in the bargain box.
If, however, Ford goes down the drain completely, then I guess it’s not really a bargain at all – it’s junk. Besides facing foreign competitors, the company has to be restructured.
This restructuring should be called amputating. It doesn’t really instill confidence into today’s intelligent consumer to see Ford cutting 30,000 additional employees and shutting down over a dozen factories.
I had talked to my grandfather the other day and he told me that the two Ford dealerships near him have closed their doors.
One of the ironic things about business is that you have to sell a product or provide a service to make money, and it becomes difficult to sell a product or provide that service from closed showrooms and factories.
Ford can restructure and amputate all it wants, but the bottom line is that the company must improve its product or it will go the way of Packard, DeLorean, Oldsmobile, Studabaker, etc.
So I guess for me it comes down to quality. This is Ford’s biggest problem. Build a quality product and Americans will buy it.
Build garbage, and we’ll put you out to rust.
And that’s exactly what many Americans are doing. I remember as a young lad climbing into our Ford Aerostar, and then two Ford Windstars, the second of which died after we took it in for maintenance (ironic?).
Ford simply has to build a better vehicle, if it has any chance of surviving.
That Ford Windstar was our last Ford. We currently own a Dodge Ram whose transmission went after 60,000 miles.
We are done with American cars and we are not alone.
In early 2006, for the first time in history, more Americans bought cars from foreign manufacturers than from the United States.
On average, foreign cars tend to hold their value longer than their domestic competition.
The American consumer is not ignorant, especially when information is only a mouse-click away.
Try to imagine this scenario, this might be hard because this is in the future but please try your best.
Okay here we go: You drive a car from Japan, you press 1 for English, you wear shoes made in Mexico City and you talk to a computer support person in New Delhi for your computer that was made in Hong Kong.
Pretty crazy, huh?
Instead of going off on a tangent about outsourcing and losing American jobs, there is a trend perhaps even more startling – the loss of our American identity.
The three most American entities are baseball, hamburgers and Fords. If we lose Ford, what’s next?
People might suggest that American culture is just undergoing a facelift.
Maybe it is just the globalization of the 21st century, but you’ll never catch me watching the Red Sox play cricket at Suzuki Park while eating a schnitzel.