Posted on 07/31/2002 12:49:39 PM PDT by ZGuy
The Ford Motor Company has decided not to build a second generation of the Excursion sport utility vehicle, which is seven feet tall and able to seat a softball team, people close to Ford's future product program said tonight.
The Excursion, cited by critics as the industry's most visible symbol of sport utility vehicle excess, is expected to be discontinued at the conclusion of the 2004 model year, meaning that it will have lasted only one generation. The Excursion was introduced in 1999 as a 2000 model year vehicle.
Sarah Tatchio, a spokeswoman for Ford, declined to confirm whether the company would drop the 19-foot vehicle, which gets 10 miles a gallon, is too long to fit in many garages and takes up two conventional city parking spaces.
"I am not able to talk about the future like that," Ms. Tatchio said. "The Excursion is part of our lineup for '03 and that's all I can say." Reports of the end of the Excursion appeared tonight on WDIV-TV in Detroit. Several industry analysts have also been projecting the Excursion's eventual demise.
Ford introduced the $45,000 Excursion in a bid to grab sales away from the industry's perennial leader in the extra-large sport utility vehicle market, the Chevrolet Suburban. At the time it was conceived, Detroit automakers were enjoying strong sales and healthy profits for sport utility vehicles.
"Detroit went completely cockeyed when it came to trucks," said Christopher Cedergren, managing director with Nextrend, a consulting firm based in Thousand Oaks, Calif. "They thought that if it was a truck, it would sell and make a load of money."
Ford's expectations were relatively modest, however. Given that Suburban sales topped 100,000 a year, it hoped it could sell at least 50,000 Excursions annually. It thought the vehicle, based on the Super Duty Ford F-series pickup, could round out a lineup of vehicles including the Ford Explorer and the Ford Expedition, which seemed petite by comparison.
But the Excursion stumbled from the start, in part because of a wave of negative publicity fanned by environmental groups like the Sierra Club. Even before the Excursion was officially introduced, the group ran a contest on its Web site to choose a nickname for the vehicle. The winner was the Ford Valdez, after the Exxon tanker that ran aground in Alaska.
Tonight, Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, hailed the Excursion's pending demise. "I think this is a sign that the age of dinosaurs is about to come to an end," he said.
The Excursion's introduction came less than a year after William Clay Ford Jr., an avowed environmentalist and great-grandson of the company's founder, became chairman in 1998. Mr. Ford found himself in the awkward spot of having to justify the vehicle, which the Sierra Club contended would emit 130 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, compared with 23 for a conventional car.
However, Mr. Ford, who became chief executive last year, defended the Excursion, contending it had received a "bum rap." He pointed to the $15,000 in potential profits that Ford hoped each vehicle would yield, even while acknowledging that Ford was too dependent on truck sales.
But instead of the hoped-for results, industry analysts said Ford most likely lost money on the Excursion. It needed to sell about 40,000 a year to break even. In the first half of this year, Ford sold 15,107 Excursions, down 16 percent from the pace in 2001, meaning it is likely to sell only about 30,000 this year.
Mr. Pope said, "William Clay Ford will go down as the man who was smart enough to kill the Excursion before it became an Edsel" referring to the embarrassingly unpopular Ford car of the late 1950's.
In fact, the Excursion's lack of market success is the key reason why Ford is discontinuing the Excursion, not criticism from environmentalists, said Michael Luckey, president of the Luckey Consulting Group in Pompton Plains, N.J.
While Ford recently ended a streak of losses by posting a modest second-quarter profit, it has warned investors to expect a loss for the third quarter and has embarked on a vigorous cost-cutting campaign. Ford recently announced it was dropping the Lincoln Blackwood luxury pickup truck, which it sold for less than nine months.
"They are looking at everything with a fine-tooth comb," Mr. Luckey said. "If Ford was earning $4 billion to $5 billion a year, it might survive to the next generation."
Mr. Luckey said the Excursion's eventual disappearance did not mean Americans had completely tired of sport utility vehicles, only that they had more choices. A number of vehicles have three rows of seats, one of Excursion's key selling points, but are easier to maneuver, he said.
"S.U.V.'s are going to be very popular, but as far as bigger is better, this could be a sign that people have said enough is enough," Mr. Luckey said.
Has nothing to do with size. It's a Ford and it can't compete with GM's Chevy Suburban/GMC YukonXL which is a far more advanced vehicle in all respects IMHO.
In the same vein, we are looking at a Yukon or Tahoe. The kids have outgrown the Bravada.
Bingo. Tying the death of a badly designed vehicle to the work of environmental extremists is an big stretch. Objective journalism my @ss.
B<> Anytime they pull ANY Ford is a good time. Signed, former Aerostar owner.
HellofaSUV!
Makes the Excursions and Surburbans look like VWs!
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