Ford's New Plan May Work, Says Industry Expert

An expert on consumer trends in the car industry thinks the latest changes at Ford may bring the company back into solvency in North America. Ford Motor Company announced last week its plans to re-tool some of its plants, including the Louisville Assembly Plant, to be able to produce multiple models of a similar size.It’s not the first time for has tried make a car popular in one part of the world equally popular everywhere else. Similar efforts were made and failed with the Contour and Focus. Car and Driver Technical Editor Mike Austin thinks they’ve learned from those mistakes and will be successful this time."They have a lot of commonality, but they’re not exactly the same, and I think that’s what we’ll see with Ford," says Austin. "They’ll use as much as the global stuff as they can, but they won’t do it with such fervor to ignore the market."Those smaller, more-efficient models from Europe are slated for U.S. production by 2010. Meanwhile, the Kentucky Truck Plant will absorb the company’s large SUV production in addition to Super-Duty trucks.