Posted by
SmartFella? on Monday, July 27, 2009 2:21:08 PM
Ford Motor Company appears to have done the smart thing. Before the Dire Economic Circumstances we find our collective selves in, they started fixing their Dire Economic Circumstances. Are they now going to be declared dumb because they did the smart thing?
The Smartfella? spent more that thirty years in the Automotive Industry. At one point I was up there at the height of my mediocre career. The thoughts and observations expressed in this Foolishness…Or It It?, therefore are accurate…maybe.
A news article on July 24, 2009 says Ford made $2.3 billion dollars in the second quarter of 2009. That is a lot of money in a Dire Economic Situation! That means Ford is smart…Or are they?
The same article that says Ford was/is smart also says that the being smart part may be their undoing. The following is a quote from the article…
”The company also is shifting its model lineup toward smaller cars, which could end up being a liability. If gas prices do not begin to climb, they’re also going to face the challenge of having a lot of small cars to sell and there may not be demand for them.”
Let me see if I can get my mediocre automotive mind around this…
Ø The buying public had wanted big cars so Ford built big cars to satisfy that demand.
Ø Darn near overnight the price of gas went sky high and the buying public started demanding small cars.
Ø Ford is now doing the smart thing by shifting to the manufacture of small cars, which the buyers were demanding yesterday, but it may be the dumb thing to do because the buying public may not want what they were demanding yesterday today.
As I think this thing through, it is now clear. In order to be smart, Ford has to gear up to build what the buying public may not want because when they realize that what they don’t want is what they want Ford will be there with the product they didn’t want.
Would I kid u?