[PaulDexler]

Hi Joe,
I guess I do have a year or two on you, I was 12 when FDR died. Anyway, I still think the live rear axle in the Mustang is a bad idea, but in the past, Ford had been particularly unreceptive to improved ideas, feeling that so long as they made it, people would buy it. The current Focus is a good case in point. The Focus we get is a rework of the previous generation, not the completely new car you get. It was done for two reasons. One, Ford marketing assumed that there was no real market in the U.S. for an upscale compact car, and two, they thought it would be cheaper to rework the existing model than to "Americanize" (horrible word) the new one. Well, they didn't miss the boat as badly as they did with the Edsel, but the market changed, and the costs rose, so they ended up with a less good car for almost the same as it would have cost them to bring the good one to market. According to Alan Mullaly, they aren't going to do that any more. Going forward, Ford models will be international in scope across the range. They're even talking about bringing the Ka into the States. However, in a market in which every hint of government regulation is screamed at by the right as "socialism," it is difficult to imagine some of the restrictions that exist for European manufacturers. Supposedly, we live or die by the free market, which is mighty fickle.
I hope this makes some sense, it was 104 degrees here today, and promises to be hotter tomorrow, and I don't do heat well. Where I live, we have these really hot, really dry (5% humidity) days in early fall, then usually a huge brush fire, and then the rains come and the mudslides begin.
Peace,
Paul