Ford Cutting Lineup

[Unit 5302]

Ford Motor Company has decided to drop the Mercury Cougar, the Mercury Villager, the Lincoln Continental, and the Ford Escort from production.

Hopefully the Cougar will return as a platform mate to the Mustang, but who knows? It certainly cripples the Mercury brand name further. I don't know how Ford expects Mercury to succeed by killing all the models they sell of their lots.

Ford has also announced plans to lay off thousands, drop shifts, and shut several plants down. This is due to a $400 million operating loss predicted for 2001. That is in contrast to over $2 billion in profits for 2000. I find this to be EXTREMELY short sighted, uncalled for, and just plain stupid. Only $400 million in losses, which appearently takes into account the $3 billion that they paid out for the Firestone tire ordeal. Nobody expected Ford to make a profit because of that, how could they expect to? A truely GM-like short sighted decision that I hope is the only major folly for a while.

Perhaps I am wrong and have been misinformed, but from the information I have, my opinion is as stated.