Although I haven't driven one yet, the Fusion looks to be a pretty decent effort by Ford to finally compete head to head with Camry and Accord. It is one the the three finalists for North American Car of the Year and has a pretty decent chance of winning according to the panel on Autoline Detroit. (Honda Civic and Pontiac Solstice are the other two finalists.) Autoline Detroit also liked the Explorer's chances as a finalist for North American Truck of the Year vs Honda Ridgeline and the Nissan Xterra. No Chevys in either of these two groups!!!

 

Here's my vote on the platform I'd like to see overtake the Hondas.

 

The Explorer is not far behind.

The lesser of the two evils.

If the Trail Blazer sucks, than the Explorer is on its knees waiting for the call up.

They're both a POS!

 

If the Ford F150 continues this trend and makes best selling truck for 25 years, I wonder, do you think Ford might release some kind of F150 Quarter Century Best Seller Addition for 2008??
I wonder what standard options it would have that would fit the 25 theme?

 

I wouldn't worry about Ford so much.

-Explorer sales are down due to the mid year loss of the Sport Trac. Keep in mind that sales of both the Explorer and Sport Trac were combined into one category

-Chevy is outselling Ford due to their continuing reliance on fleet sales, which turn little to no profit for automotive companies

-GM had a whole month of Family Plan pricing to themselves

-The Freesytle was introduced for 05, so I am sure that took a big chunk out of Explorer sales. When the Edge debuts it will take even more sales from the Explorer

In a case such as this bigger is not better. Glad to see the F 150 continues it's sales dominance. If you ask me Chevy can have the title, because as we all know it's not like it will help GMs bottom line.

 

Besides the issues listed above, I'm sure that the higher gas prices affected the sale of mid-sized SUV's such as the Explorer since many of those buyers were people wanting an SUV to look cool rather than for their usefulness. I know several people who had SUV's and swapped back to cars because they didn't like the bad gas mileage when the vehicle was nothing more than basic tranportation, no work, and that they can get a more luxurious car for the same that a plain SUV would cost.

Personally, I didn't really like the newer style Explorer, and I pretty much determined that the '97 Mountaineer that I had would be the last SUV for quite a while because my needs changed to needing a PU. Ironically, I'm getting better mileage on the F-150 than I did with the Mountianeer. I hope that the '06 Explorer is better than the '02-'05 Explorers have been.