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Show IB Emery County Progress Castle Dale, Utah Tuesday May27,2O03 Sun Advocate Price, Utah Tuesday May27,2003 IB One hundred years and countin introduced the Mustang on By RICHARD SHAW Siatf reporter An article in Time magazine in the early 1980's pointed out. from their experts point of iew. that the import car business had literally driven Chrysler out of business (Congress had given the third biggest car maker a billion dollar bailout when the company had just about gone bellyup in 1979), had Ford Motor Company on the ropes and that the only full line automobile manufacturer that would be left in the United States w ithin 10 years was General Motors. It further stated that Ford's business plan would soon change, to where they only built light and heavy duty trucks and O' tractors. But the experts were wrong; way wrong. And if they had looked more closely, they would have found that ir. the history of Ford, the company had faced many challenges during their 70 plus year history that were either as hard or harder to overcome than the imports ever were. From it's beginnings in the early 1900's, it had always faced adversity. The Model T had been introduced as the everymans car, yet at the time everyman couldn't afford to buy it. When sales of the Model T began to slide drastically the company introduced the Model A, which came out just before the great depression started. The company almost folded when people couldnt buy the new vehicle. Then they d introduced the first in a common American car and it became the desire of every kid who bought an old jalopy to put one of those in it until the early 1950s. Ford then faced World War 11 and supported the war effort by making myriads of machines for the fighting, but the retooling effort after the conflict almost broke the bank. In the mid 1950's flat-hea- V-- 8 Chevrolet introduced it's first thin walled over head valve while Ford sent it's cars out the factory doors with a power plant, that while powerful, was no match for the blue bow ties engine power. At about the same time Ford decided instead to initiate a safety program in their vehicles. Seat belts, padded dashes and other features would in later years prove to be very important, in fact mandatory in cars made in the U.S. But horsepower hungry Americans bought up the GM cars and ignored the safety issue in those days. Despite heavy advertising from Ford, the safety push was decimated by slow sales. At the time of the safety push, Lee Iacocca, who in those days was the companies sales manager remembered in his book laeoeca: An Autobiography that at sales meetings in 1956 he would stand on a 10 foot ladder and drop unboiled eggs on a Ford padded dash that had been taken out of a car just to prove how it absorbed force. He said he just hoped they V-- 8, cury (Ford's other mid range cost car) killed the market. In the early 1970's in an effort to keep up with the fast paced import market and a gasoline market gone wild (in 1970 one could find gas for as low as 19 cents a gallon and by the end of 1973 the average price was in the range of 70 cents) they introduced the Pinto. There are those who praised the addition of a small car reminiscent of the by gone Falcon, but wouldn't break and ruin his presentation to the sales force. In the late 1950's Ford built what they thought would be the car of the future, the Edsel. Critics panned it and the customers stayed away in droves. The problem wasn't with the cars so much, it was actually not a bad car, and it presented some great innovations, but its appearance and the fact that it was sold in the same price category as the well known and trusted Mer fcsts&r - -- soon most people were cussing the machine. And when gas tank explosion lawsuits and investigations began, it was not a good time to be a Ford dealer. Yet the company survived. But more importantly, what the critics should have looked at. rather than the problems the company had faced and the failures they had experienced, they should have examined the successes Ford had achieved over the years. The Model T was the largest selling car ever made. From 1908. when the car replaced the venerable models N, S, and R. it sold over 15.0000 units. The changes over that 19 years were slight and the company was able to keep the price down. The lowest priced model sold for 8260 while the average price was in the range of $400. The last one came off the line on May 25r 1927. flathead was Fords another large success. It powered everything from large touring automobiles to heavy trucks for another 20 years after it's introduction in the early 1930's. Success came again in the 1960s when Ford V-- 8 April 17. 1964. That car changed the wav Americans looked at sports cars and within two years all the other manufacturers had jumped on the wagon of the "pony car" fad but none ever outsold the Mustang. In fact, as of last year. Mustang is the only one of the "pony cars that is still in production. Gone are the Camaio. Firebird. Baracuda. Cougar and Javelin. Fords biggest success however has been in something that Henry Ford himself seemed most interested in. He actually got to tinkering with gas powered machines to create tractors for farmers, because that is where his Michigan roots were. But in the process of developing the Model T. people began to put beds on them and turn them into trucks; trucks tor farms and then for industry. In 1948. Ford, a companv that had always done well since actually beginning to build their own trucks, introduced the The l turned into the by the and then into the l 50 in 1978. The configuration of truck, a light duty pick up, at home in the supermarket parking lot or the industrial paik was horn and would turn out to be the largest selling vehicle in the world year in and year out. If all models of this truck are added together, it's total production has passed the Model T. hi recent sears Toni Inis put F-- F-- l. mid-5()- 's F-- out am tluit the t cities in the I9S() would no believe. The Taurus .stole the maiket in it's ( lass for ( Continued from (Continued from page IB) years after it's introduction in 1986. and still racks up impressive sales figures year after year. For a three year period in the 1990 Fords vehicles held five of the top ten spots for domestic vehicle sales. It was an impressive comeback for a company that was on the (Continued on page 2.) Best Deals of the Year Credit Union Blow Out (0 T335 2003 Chevy Crew Cab 2003 Explorer 2003 Excursion 3rd Seat, Loaded, Rear AC, 4x4, New 6.0L Diesel. Loaded. 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