Free Republic

Five cars rented by President Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail for his Thanksgiving weekend trip to Nantucket mysteriously burst into flames a day after he left, according to reports. Footage of the burned out rental vehicles in a car park at Nantucket Memorial Airport was obtained by the Nantucket Current. The local news site reported that the cause of the fire was under investigation. No one was injured in the blaze. Footage showed firefighters dampening down the smouldering remains of several vehicles including a Chevy Suburban, a Ford Explorer, an Infiniti QX80, a Ford Expedition, and a Jeep Gladiator. In...

Hurt by Falling Sales of SUVs, Ford Will Face Plant Closings and Thousands of Job Losses DETROIT (AP) -- Ford Motor Co., hurt by falling sales of sport utility vehicles, is expected to close plants and cut thousands of jobs in North America as part of a restructuring program to be announced Monday. ADVERTISEMENT Ford has refused to release details of the plan, dubbed the "Way Forward," which also is expected to include product changes and cuts to Ford's salaried ranks. Ford has about 87,000 hourly workers and 35,000 salaried workers in North America. "It's going to be painful for...

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20051001T210000-0500_89548_OBS_FORD_HALTS_PRODUCTION_OF_GIGANTIC_SUV.asp Ford halts production of gigantic SUV LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) - The last Ford Excursion, a super-sized sport-utility vehicle, rolled off the assembly line Friday as the automaker shifts its focus to producing more fuel-efficient vehicles. The company announced in July that it would halt production of the 19-foot (5.7-metre) gas-guzzler as sales of its larger SUVs dragged. The last Excursion rolled off the assembly line at the Louisville plant at 1:30 pm EDT on Friday, said Ann Marie Gattari, a spokeswoman at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Gattari said the decision to quit making the Excursion at the Kentucky...

Ford Motor Co. will kill off the Ford Excursion, its largest sport utility vehicle and a lightning rod for criticism from environmental groups, next year, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday. The mammoth vehicle will stop rolling off the assembly line in September, as Ford moves to free up production capacity for the refreshed Super Duty pickup truck, said the source, on condition of anonymity. The Excursion and Ford Super Duty F-Series pickups are assembled at the automaker's Louisville, Kentucky, truck plant. A Ford spokesman declined to comment on the product plan. Ford sources had said in...

'What would Jesus drive?' gas-guzzling Americans are asked Oliver Burkeman in New York Thursday November 14, 2002 The Guardian The midwestern United States, equally devout in its worship of God as in its worship of gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive vehicles, is about to be asked to choose between the two. "What Would Jesus Drive?" is the slogan dominating a television advertising campaign about to blanket cities in Iowa, Indiana and Missouri, along with the southern state of North Carolina. The question presumably did not arise in first-century Galilee, but the Christian group behind the ads believes the answer would not include...

"What would Jesus drive?" asks the new religious campaign against SUVs. Naturally, everyone has been eager to supply a punch line. My initial thought was a donkey, which has considerably less passenger and cargo space than an SUV, along with emissions problems of its own. Then a colleague pointed out that Jesus was a carpenter, so he'd probably want a pickup truck, which falls into the same mileage and emissions category as an SUV, to haul his lumber. On CNN's "Talk Back Live," a guest suggested that Jesus might very well drive a big SUV, especially if he was...

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...