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My work has appeared in a number of major publications either as writer, photographer, or source. I enjoy talking about all things automotive. Recent Posts
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CarSpace Hudson's BlogAll around the car world there are stories and these are just a few of them. A new blog is posted every Monday. Sometimes more often. Jun 4, 2009 - Bankruptcies and Government LoansWe all know that the automotive industry is in trouble. Bankruptcies at GM and Chrysler were the expected outcome. These two companies used the “excuse” of economic upheaval to radically reorganize themselves in ways that labor unions, stockholders, and franchise laws wouldn’t allow otherwise. But their current problems are not wholly the fault of the UAW or the dealers. There’s plenty of blame for the Big3 themeselves. GM (and Chrysler and Ford) have not helped themselves by concentrating on trucks. It has been very short-sighted to focus up to 60% of their product mix on trucks when the marketplace is only, at best, 50% trucks. And when fuel prices spike (which we all expected at some point), trucks are the first segments to be hit. Sure, the other manufacturers have been hurt but the Big3, and their concentration on the US market, has hurt them more than others. GM and Chrysler are not in the same place that Chrysler was in 1979. When Chrysler asked for loan guarantees thirty years ago, they had radical new products ready to hit the market. Chrysler’s newest products, the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon, had already set the groundwork for the K-Cars which would, in turn, lead to replacing all of Chrysler’s antiquated products…it was a seismic shift at the time. GM (and definitely Chrysler) don’t have that product ready to rock the industry. The K-Car in 1980 was revolutionary…a $6,000 6-passenger car that got 25 mpg city. Today, GM has some very good products. Vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac CTS are very competitive, but they aren’t class-leading. It’s not that GM can’t build class-leading products; it’s just that they have the whole market to cover with “good” products while other companies can concentrate on one segment. It’s a very competitive marketplace with very strong competitors. GM is spread very thin. Having good gas mileage or winning an award or two does not mean the vehicle is “class leading.” While there is absolutely a need in the marketplace for vehicles like the Silverado, recent economic shifts have proven that you can’t rely on sales of full-sized trucks to carry the rest of the company. Manufacturers need to be ready with cars when more than half of the marketplace buys cars and yet more than half of the sales from GM (and Ford and Chrysler) come from trucks. It’s a global marketplace and no company is rooted in any one country. GM, like Toyota and Honda, harnesses their global reach to design and build their vehicles as best as it can. Whether it’s Australians working on the Zeta platform (for the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac G8) or Germans working on the Epsilon platform (for the Chevrolet Malibu, Saturn Aura, Pontiac G6) or Koreans working on the Theta platform (for the Saturn Vue and the new Chevrolet Equinox), the money and technology flows around the world. But now GM is selling divisions and brands and reducing it’s ability to compete globally, which had been a key strength of General Motors. If GM were to close its doors (which I can’t see happening), the supplier base would be hurt. But most of GM’s suppliers have spread their eggs across many baskets, including many of the transplants. It would take some time, but the suppliers would shift their focus from GM to one or more of the transplants (and/or remaining Big3). And the production volume lost if GM were to disappear would eventually be made up by other companies. Production volume would remain in the US as it is more economical to build many vehicles in North America than to import them. Suppliers would grow to support this change in the industry. Auto workers would remain, supplier workers would remain…possibly at lower volumes but still making the same number of vehicles and the industry would continue. The transplant companies are not so dumb that they don’t realize a vibrant US economy is necessary for the sales of their products. Whether or not the car companies are physically based in the US, the American economy will survive and grow and thrive. And when it comes to the US market, the Big3 have put themselves in a bad position. While the reliability and durability of Big3 cars is on-par with the top brands from other countries, perceived quality and dynamic thinking is not quite there. Why did Toyota and Honda have to come out with hybrids nearly a decade before any of the Big3? Why aren’t there any diesel cars from the Big3? GM was ahead of the curve with the EV1…so where has that technology led? GM was toying with fuel cell and steam(!) powered vehicles in the 1960s and rotary and Sterling engines in the 1970s…what have they done lately? The US can and does compete on a manufacturing level…or else Toyota and Honda and Nissan and Mercedes-Benz and BMW and the rest wouldn’t be making vehicles on US soil. Why do US manufacturers need to put $3,500 of incentives on every car and truck for every $2,000 that the other brands use to sell their products? Why are 5-year old GM products worth a fraction of the competitive models from Honda and Toyota? GM touts the strength of its Chevrolet Malibu, but why does the Camry (as well as the Accord and Altima) outsell the Malibu with fewer dealers and a higher price tag? Loaning money to failing companies without a concrete turnaround plan was a losing proposition and bankruptcy was the only possible outcome. Without filing for bankruptcy, GM had the impossible task of turning itself around. With a bankruptcy filing, they have the nearly impossible task of convincing the buying public to make a long-term investment, with the purchase of a vehicle, in a company that just walked away from many of its American creditors…including contracts with American workers. History has shown that businesses do not learn much from the past experiences of their industry, so little can be expected from GM and Chrysler following this recent set of events. Loaning money to these companies should be treated as if a parent were loaning money to their child: it’s as good as gone. Even with large holdings in GM and Chrysler, getting any return on the government’s investment is a long shot. With some luck, the American workers will take this opportunity to find more stable employment in preparation for the next market shake up.
May 25, 2009 - Ringing in the New SaturnSaturn lost its way. General Motors had a great idea to revolutionize the way it built and designed cars and this became Saturn. The original Saturn SL sedan wasn’t a class-leading vehicle by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a good American car at a good price. Saturn dealers built up stand-alone showrooms with haggle-free sales and salespeople on salary instead of commission. Saturn owners became a cult. They would return to dealerships for service and get a free car wash. They would return to dealerships as if they were family members joining a reunion with hot dogs and hamburgers. They would even make the pilgrimage to Spring Hill, Tennessee, to visit the “birth place” of their beloved cars. Any uniqueness designed into the original Saturn models and dealerships faded as the 1990s passed. The “reunions” ended and dealers dropped the car washes. Eventually, products were built outside of the Spring Hill plant in regular General Motors plants. Models shared platforms and engines with other GM products, diluting the characteristics that made Saturn “a different kind of car company.” Toyota tried to create the cult of ownership with its Scion brand. The distinctive (for the US market) design of the Scion xB and the fun, sporty nature of the Scion tC have generated their own sub-culture, similar to where Saturn started. Had Saturn created some unique vehicles and continued family-like feeling among its owners, the brand could have become a success. Which brings us to today, nearly two decades after the first car rolled off of the Spring Hill assembly line. General Motors believes that it cannot make Saturn work. With more than 400 dealers who have spent millions of dollars for scratch-built showrooms, General Motors can’t affordably walk away from them, most of which are strong non-Saturn GM dealers as well. GM has already announced the end of production for Saturn vehicles, but still intends on selling the dealer network. Among the most interesting potential buyers for Saturn is the Penske Automotive Group. Automotive News reports that Penske is negotiating with Renault Samsung Motors of South Korea to supply products. Current Samsung products could directly replace each of the existing Saturn products (aside from the niche Sky roadster and the large Outlook crossover). And since all Samsung products are based on Nissan products, getting the vehicles up to US specs wouldn’t be a stretch. Penske’s Saturn could have a compact and mid-sized sedan as well as a compact SUV ready for launch not too long after the papers are signed. But could they make it a success? Just like Saturn’s current lineup of the compact Astra, mid-sized Aura, and Vue, the Samsung SM3, SM5/SM7, and QM5 are good vehicles without much to distinguish them. They lack the “fun” of a Scion. They lack the image of a Subaru. And Saturn lost the cultiness of a Saturn many years ago. Penske’s group has been very good at managing the automotive business. From racing to sales to fleet management to service, they’ve done a great job. Even as the sole importer of Daimler AG’s Smart cars, they’ve been a success. But the purchase of Saturn would graduate Penske to a whole new level of “full-line” marketer. Even with the help of Renault (and their wizard leader Carlos Ghosn), the Penske/Saturn/Samsung combination would be a long-shot bet. General Motors built this brand up from scratch with billions of dollars invested and only had a few quarters of profits in nearly 20 years of existence. Even with dramatically lowered investment cost, making Saturn a success now will be nearly impossible. This will either be Roger Penske’s greatest achievement in the automotive realm (and he just won his 15th Indianapolis 500) or the move that tarnishes his automotive business legacy. Sadly, the latter is more likely.
Feb 25, 2008 - The Shaky World of Automotive InvestingUntil around 1950, there was a Wild West-like attitude in the American automotive industry. It was a frontier to be conquered. Throughout automotive history, there have been something like 5,000 individual makers of cars and trucks in the world with about 3,500 of them being situated in the United States. Companies like General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have survived, in one form or another, for over a century. General Motors turns 100 this year but its oldest parts (Cadillac, Buick, and the late Oldsmobile) are well over the century mark. Ford was founded in 1903. And while Chrysler was created in 1924 from the remains of Maxwell, parts of the company can be traced back to Rambler which dates back to 1903 as an automobile manufacturer. There are a few minor vehicle manufacturers in the US. The most prominent of them is Panoz which is slowly approaching its 20th anniversary. Outside of these tiny footnotes, there hasn't been a major successful American manufacturer founded since World War II. And even new import brands on US soil have been a rare find in the past 30 years. Rare successes like Hyundai and Kia are at odds with struggling Mitsubishi and soon-to-be-gone Isuzu. So you might have to forgive my apprehension everytime someone announces a new venture. When Bob Lutz announced the revival of Cunningham about eight years ago, I was excited. This was the first time in half a century that a new manufacturer would be coming to the US where I trusted the founder. Bob Lutz is the consumate car guy with REAL automotive experience working with the likes of BMW, General Motors, and Chrysler. Lutz even had novel, and as I saw it workable, approaches to manufacturing (which he laid out in two issues of Automotive Industries). But when Lutz was hired by General Motors, it was obvious that all bets on the Cunningham were off. So if Lutz prefered to take the corporate route instead of laying the foundation for real history, I knew new car production was truly a tough nut to crack. When people with questionable backgrounds talk about their automotive ventures, I automatically write them off in my head. People like Malcolm Bricklin, Gerald Weigert, and many others show great enthusiasm, some even know aspects of the automotive business, but most of them are just in business to make a quick buck. So ventures trying to tap the Chinese automakers for the next big thing find their way to my "skeptical" list. I understand that these people are trying to do what the Germans did in the late 1940s, the Japanese did in the 1960s, and the Koreans in the 1980s...catch the next big wave at its beginning. People like Max Hoffman and Kjell Qvale did just that, but the market was vastly different than it is today. The members of my list have included many different types of ventures. Importers of the ARO from Romania, the Proton from Malaysia, the TVR from the UK, the Citroen from France, the Alfa Romeo from Italy, and the Chery from China, among many others, have all announced their intentions in the past 20 years. Many times, these announcements have been followed by many different setbacks, some even could be just called frauds or scams. So it was of no surprise that Automotive News revealed that the head of one of these latest ventures was hiding a shady past. CHAMCO is a New Jersey-based importer who has announced that they plan on selling Chinese trucks in the next few years. The head spokesperson for CHAMCO has stated that he's simply a consultant for the company, but it seems that his wife is actually the chief stockholder of the company. And his past, according to the newspaper, shows that "he did time for fraud" in an earlier trucking venture that he controlled. I'm a huge car fan. I would love to see new and exciting choices in cars and trucks in the US. But each time a Build-To-Order or CHAMCO or ARO America is announced, I need to take a step back and see what's actually going on. The odds of any of these ventures getting off the ground, let alone becoming successful, are becoming smaller an
Jan 7, 2008 - CAFE and Your Car ChoiceIn a previous life, people relied on me to keep them abreast of the goings-on in the automotive world. My current life makes knowing the restoration market a little more important than the global production of cars and trucks, but that doesn't mean I've stopped paying attention. All the buzz in the American automotive industry today, aside from "when is the market coming back," is about CAFE. CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It's the basis for improving the fuel economy of vehicles sold in the US and has been for well over 30 years. The fuel economy of each manufacturers fleet of vehicles sold in the United States is averaged together, weighted by the number of vehicles sold, to generate a CAFE number. Currently, up to three CAFE numbers are generated per manufacturer: domestic car, imported car, and light-truck. The idea is that each manufacturer would be required to sell more fuel efficient vehicles to keep their CAFE number above a set level or else face a stiff penalty. The CAFE levels peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the car number set at 27.5 and the light-truck number set around 23.5. (Please understand that the CAFE number is not the number, city or highway, found on the EPA sticker on every new car. Rather it's the "combined" number formulated way back when before the gas mileage rating system was revised...twice.) In reality, CAFE has done very little to help improve the economy of the American fleet. Since the mid 1970s, the advent of fuel injection and other technologies have made engines smaller, more powerful, and more fuel efficient so the manufacturers have been able to keep up with the rising CAFE (which was slowed because manufacturers petitioned the government in the mid-1980s). By 1990, the average fleet fuel economy in the US was TWICE what it was only 15 years earlier. But fuel prices didn't rise as expected in the 1980s and early 1990s. Demand for larger, more fuel hungry vehicles rose but since CAFE didn't allow for the supply of large cars to meet the demand, manufacturers turned to trucks. And the SUV market bloomed! From just a couple hundred thousand vehicles in the early 1980s, the SUV market in the US peaked at about 2 million vehicles a year in the early part of this decade. Car production made up less than half of all vehicles built in North America just a few years ago, mostly due to CAFE regulations. Another "benefit" of CAFE was to be the added domestic production of small cars. General Motors tied up with Toyota to produce some small models in California. But Ford, on the other hand, moved production of the large Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis to Canada (later NAFTA would make Canadian vehicles "domestic" in CAFE formulas). The whole concept was to get more fuel efficient vehicles on American roads. Bob Lutz, former Vice Chairman of Chrysler and current Vice Chairman of GM (and a real "car guy"), described CAFE as being akin to getting everyone to lose weight by requiring clothing manufacturers to produce smaller clothes. And now CAFE is potentially on the rise again. How will vehicles change with the rise of CAFE from 27.5 to 35? How will truck sales change with an increase there? Whatever will capitalistic Americans do without gas guzzlers? We'll be just fine. Cars today are much smaller on the outside than they were before CAFE, but have much the same interior space. Cars today have more power, far better fuel economy, are much more reliable and dependable, pollute far less and are safer. All of this, and cars are just as affordable as ever. I expect the same in the next 15 years. And I don't expect gasoline to fall from its perch as the number one fuel for personal transportation. I, personally, am looking for a commuter car that doesn't tie me to oil companies. When oil companies get government assistance and generate record profits, I can't imagine why gas prices jump every few days. Are they at risk of losing money because a barrel of oil went up a few cents? Why should I continue to fuel (pun intended) their record profits? And why should ANYONE worry about CAFE do any harm to the car as we know it? The first 30 years of CAFE didn't hurt the car...or the oil companies. I'll keep my gas-consuming cars for fun, but I'm in the market for a good, used Standard-Vanguard Citicar electric for my daily commute. If you've got one sitting around, I'd sure like to talk to you, but it seems like many people have the same idea as me. Have you seen the price of a Citicar on eBay? As Economics professors taught me....supply and demand!
Dec 8, 2007 - Hudson's Book Club: Holiday EditionI've decided to take advantage of my prime location among CarSpace's bloggers and use my influence in much the way that Oprah does on her little TV show. Sure, she has somewhere around 7 million viewers and I've got somewhere around 30 readers each week, but I'm trying to convince myself that I've got the same kind of influence as the aforementioned media queen. Like Ms. Winfrey, I'm starting my own little "book club" and just in time for the holidays! This month, I'm pulling two books from the archives: a classic and an overlooked gem. In the 1990s, there were a series of books written on various automotive topics. In each of these tomes, the writer became part of the story and embedded themselves (much like their braver cohorts did in warzones before) as the main characters went about their daily routine. And some great books came out of this first-hand, in-depth reporting. Probably the most noteworthy of this group is James Schefter's "All Corvettes are Red" (Simon & Schuster, 1997). It follows the development, from nearly day one, of the "fifth generation" Corvette. The starts and stops of the process of developing the next-generation of one of the world's most famous models are covered. While every car nut knows that the world-class "sixth generation" Corvette has been in production for a few years now, the landmark "fifth generation" model generated such a great story that this book remains a very important work. If you like Corvettes, General Motors, engineering, bureaucracy, the auto industry, or just the development product in general, this is a must-read book. Less well known than "All Corvettes" is my other choice. And a little background may be necessary. I was at the annual banquet for the Society of Automotive Historians in the mid 1990s when I struck up a conversation with another attendee. Our conversation rambled around our various automotive interests and somehow centered on our common affection for Subaru products. My fellow historian mentioned a book that I just had to read. So as soon as I could get to Gene's Books (don't look for it, Borders killed it years ago), I picked up a copy. The book is Randall Rothenberg's "Where the Suckers Moon" (Knopf, 1994). Where Mr Schefter followed the development of a particular model, Mr Rothenberg followed the development of a particular advertising campaign, in this case Subaru's search for a new advertising firm. In the advertising world, an automotive client ranks up there among the most elusive goals. If you have one automotive client, your company has reached a certain level of status among your peers. Car companies spend billions on advertising each year in the United States and there are relatively few of these brands spending that money. This could be compared to an everyday Joe/Jane marrying a supermodel...many Joe/Janes out there looking for those precious few Heidi Klums or Cindy Crawfords. So the competition is fierce. And Subaru was courted by many of the big names and a few of the aspiring big names in the business. The tales of what these companies would do to woo a "supermodel" (even an aspiring one like Subaru) go a long way to showcase what goes on before "What to Drive" hits the airwaves. There's a brief history of Subaru at the beginning of this book, but the rest of the book goes into the search for a new ad firm and the results of that company's creative developments. It's definitely the book for those hard-to-shop for car fans on your holiday shopping list. I've got other books in my library that I'd like to tell you about, but I'll leave that for a future edition of.... Hudson's Book Club!
Dec 6, 2007 - ObituariesRecently, two automotive related deaths have been in the news. The biggest news to the general public was the passing of Evel Knievel. In the early 1970s, Evel was huge! He was on ABC's "Wide World of Sports" regularly discussing his previous or next stunt. He was the equivalent of Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan newspaper fodder today...he didn't make real news but everybody knew what he was doing. He was great at marketing himself. So good marketing that he had toys and movies based on his personna. I can still remember wanting each and every version of his toys. While my friend had the stunt car and rocket bike, I had to settle for the basic motorcycle setup. I even went as Evel Knievel once for Halloween. Times have changed and a man jumping a Harley-Davidson over a bunch of buses or riding a rocket bike into the Snake River Canyon just doesn't have the same impact that it did 35 years ago. Especially in the time of "Jackass" (definitely influenced by Evel Knievel) and the internet, simple stunts like Evel's have lost their power. On the other side of the automotive spectrum was Roger Smith. His PR machine was far larger than that of Evel Knievel, but seemingly less effective. Roger Smith headed General Motors in the 1980s. Among his accomplishments were the purchase of Ross Perot's EDS, Hughes Electronics, and the creation of Saturn. He attempted to position GM for the new and far more competitive automotive market than GM had been designed to lead; a market where companies like Toyota and Honda could sell cars more profitably. Roger Smith probably would have faded into history as just another former GM executive had it not been for another man: Michael Moore. Documentary film maker and product of Flint, Michigan, Michael Moore made his name with a movie called "Roger and Me." In this movie, Moore traced the ups and, more importantly, the downs of Flint Michigan; a city where GM had a direct impact in its ascendency and fall. And Michael Moore pointed the finger at Roger Smith as the direct cause of many of the problems in Moore's hometown. No matter what you think of Michael Moore, his movie was a powerful piece of film. And it definitely tainted the public's view of Roger Smith. Stories are rarely black and white, and this is one with a wide gray area. While Roger Smith may have seemed blind to the problems of Flint, he was a businessman and it was his job to make money for the stockholders. The people of Flint (and many other areas of the country) are worse off for it, but he may have laid the groundwork for redirecting GM for the future. General Motors is poised to become a relevant part of the global automotive industry, and could bring part of the American economy (a far smaller part than it would have controlled half a century ago) with it. Perhaps Evel Knievel could have worked his PR magic on Roger Smith in the late 1980s. Perhaps these two men could have worked together to improve both of their legacies if only their worlds had collided. Alas, Evel Knievel was 69 and Roger Smith was 82 and both are gone. But both have left a lasting memory and paved the way for many others to follow. For good or bad.
Sep 17, 2007 - The Demise of...MercuryBack in the mid 1990s, anyone who followed the automotive market could see the winds of change. There were brands that were heading for the door, but nobody would say anything official. It had to be that way so that the companies wouldn't lose additional sales and the dealers wouldn't sue. But everyone knew it. First was AMC. When Chrysler purchased American Motors in 1987, it was obvious that Jeep was the target but that the AMC brand and hundreds of dealers would be redundant. AMC became Eagle immediately to redefine the weak brand as a competitor with the European and Japanese brands. Rebadged Renaults (Eagle Premier and Medallion) and co-developed Mitsubishis (Eagle Summit and Talon) couldn't establish the brand properly since neither of the supplying companies were doing particularly well in the US. And so Jeep-Eagle dealers slowly merged with Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. The final straw was when the replacement for the Eagle Vision sedan was rebadged as teh Chrysler 300M leaving only the sporty Eagle Talon coupe. Eagle died with barely a notice. When Chrysler introduced the Plymouth Prowler and Plymouth Pronto concept cars in the mid 1990s, it seemed that the Plymouth brand was ready for a resurgence. It was about that time that Plymouth was oddly missed when the Chrysler and Dodge brands replaced their mid-sized models with all-new vehicles. Plymouth got the Breeze a year later, but it was lacking many options that its siblings had including the popular V6 engine. Sales lagged. Even so, the Prowler was put into production in 1997 to bring attention to the overlooked brand. Aside from the low production roadster, Plymouth's lineup included the compact Neon, the mid-sized Breeze, and the Voyager minivan. Once Chrysler Corporation's highest volume brand, Plymouth had fallen behind even the pseudo-luxury brand of Chrysler in sales. The fact that updated 2001 Voyager lacked "Plymouth" badging was the first tangible sign that the end was near. And so it went that the 2002 Voyager and Prowler became Chrysler models while the Breeze and Neon simply died in 2001. Throughout the 1990s, General Motors tried to re-establish the Oldsmobile brand. First it was "Not Your Father's" car and later became an entry-level luxury import fighter. Neither direction took with buyers and sales continued to slide. Even the introduction of a minivan and sport-ute could help Oldsmobile's slide. In January 2001, the end was announced but legal disputes with dealers kept Oldsmobile alive into the 2004 model year. Even today, not all of the legal issues have been solved but Oldsmobile's story has been basically written into the history books. A sad end for what was America's oldest car brand. Ford is not immune to these kinds of troubles. Everyone knows about the Edsel that was launched just in time for a national recession. Ford's medium-priced brand only lasted three model years before dying in late 1959. But Ford has since lagged behind its Big3 brethern in the number of brands offered. In the 1990s, General Motors had seven American car and light truck brands while smaller Chrysler had five. Ford held onto its namesake brand at the low end, Mercury in the middle, and Lincoln at the top. But Mercury was always being squeezed. Since it was created in 1939, Mercury has been "the other" brand at Ford. Almost all Mercury models were based on Ford-brand products. With rare exceptions, Mercurys were "gussied up" Ford. It helped Ford Motor Company compete with GM's Oldsmobile, Buick and Pontiac brands. It has had some significant products over the years. The 1961 Comet, 1967 Cougar, and 1978 Zephyr were big hits for the brand. But even its hits such as the 1986 Sable were over shadowed by the bigger hits over at Ford. In recent years, Mercury's only products not shared with Ford products (1990 Capri convertible, 1993 Villager minivan, 1999 Cougar coupe) have not been overwhelming successes, leaving Ford and Lincoln to carry the weight of the company. With all of these dark clouds, it's obvious that Mercury has been on the chopping block of every prognosticator for twenty years. Recent articles in Automotive News and other publications have brought this back up by pointing to Mercury's empty product pipeline as proof. But Mercury's pipeline has been quite dry for quite some time. Why is now special? Limited lineup? Mercury has three sedans (mid-sized Milan, full-sized Sable, and extra large Grand Marquis) and two trucks (compact Mariner and mid-sized Mountaineer). That alone doesn't mean much...compared to Buick or Pontiac, that's a full lineup. Dry pipeline? Milan is just a couple of years old. Sable and Mariner are new for 2008. Mountaineer's a few years old and the Grand Marquis is ancient. Sounds like the same problems that Ford has. So what is it? I say it's the new head of Ford, Alan Mullally. He's not a car guy, he's an airplane guy. He has no sense of automotive history, which is a bad thing if you're a car fan but a good thing if you're an investor (I'm the former, not the latter). Mullally needs to cut costs and Mercury is nothing but costs.
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