Back in the day selling cars, one pain was the visits by
manufacturer reps. Worse was going to one of their meetings. In twenty+ years,
only two would I have had on my crew and one, Peter Butterfield, was President
of Kia at the time.
Painful to watch is this buffoon with his plan to destroy
Ford.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUdHx2zX4Uo&ab_channel=Velocity
I’m sure this plays well to the elites he runs around
with and does wonders for his ego. What none of these jerks, with their focus
group think mentalities is they don’t know their customers and what their
customers really want.
The great unwashed car consumers, in large numbers, don’t
really like cars. They have them because they need them. What they want is a
Ford Tempo of which I personally sold hundreds. The perfect, at the time, a no
brainer car, it filled a very large niche.
The inside was roomy enough for four people and was easy
to enter and exit. Visibility was adequate. The four cylinder engine, basically
one half of a 302 V-8, was stove bolt reliable and had adequate acceleration
and an easy cruising speed. The car had a comfortable ride. Turn the key and it
started. Shift into drive and away you went. With A/C, cruise, and a simple
sound system, the down payment and monthly payment was within the reach of many
people. For whatever reason, the two door models and the 5 speed manuals had a
few problems but the four door automatics were nearly bullet proof.
As a salesman, the gross profit on one was laughable but
I loved selling them. A quick easy sale, they inflated my monthly numbers. At
that Ford store, selling 20 cars a month put you into large bonuses.
Ford replaced it with the Contour, a sexy European Ford.
The Contour cost more, was cramped, and never as reliable. The mechanics
loathed working on them.
Ford has made it clear they are committed to electric
vehicles and plan to be 100% EV by 2035. Corporate suicide.
What has kept Ford alive through good times and bad
times, especially bad times, are trucks. They seem determined to fuck that up,
too. EcoBoost engines are crap, per my friends still in the business. Loading
the trucks with excess electronic crap that is hard to use and doesn’t do a
damn thing to help a truck do truck stuff, Ford is doing the dance of death.
I’m not commenting on their agriculture products as I don’t
have a clear idea of what is happening.
The biggest mistake the corporate types make, IMO, is not
recognizing who their customer is. It tain’t the family leaving the lot with a
happy tag flapping in the breeze. The customer is the lending institution
writing a check (ok, direct deposit) to the dealership. They are the buyer and
the driver(s) buys it one month at a time.
To the few wokers who might read this, this curmudgeon
Senior would like to bring this to your attention. The consumer always keeps
the right to vote their wallet. When you try to force what the consumer doesn’t
want, the cash flow that sustains you will dry up. Go woke, go broke.
