Ford has been much in the news. Unlike the other Big 3 automakers, it didn’t take government money and hasn’t been as painfully mismanaged or dismembered as Chrysler or General Motors, which no longer builds excitement. Ford has retired debt, reached an agreement with the UAW and seen its stock more than quadruple in the past few months.
What’s missing from the equation? Cars. But Ford’s comeback, to be successful, depends on building cars people want to buy. Like the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Which I watched hungrily at its launch at the 2008 LA Auto Show, and which I plunked down my hard earned money to buy six months ago.
I call mine ‘international supercar’ because it’s an American Ford, is a 5-seater based on the Mazda 6, is assembled in Mexico and includes a Japanese gas/electric hybrid system and navigation system.
After six months, I hardly see it, as my wife has decided it’s her favorite car of all time. She loves the heated leather seats, the Sync Bluetooth handsfree phone system, the hard drive where Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen reside–and most of all, the 36.8 miles per gallon we’ve averaged on gas over the 6500 miles we’ve driven the car. Doesn’t hurt that a friend says our silver Fusion “looks like a Lexus.” Or that my wife looks good in it, either.
One of my favorite features is that it goes up to 45 mph on electric power alone, so I can be crusing Ventura Boulevard in stealth mode. It runs on regular gas, too, unlike our Lincoln Aviator, which greedily (13 miles per gallon) drinks only premium.
As a techie I love all the electrical gadgets, from blind spot detection to being able to pick a restaurant or a cheap gas station (as if I needed one) on the screen or command it via Blackberry. It’s basically a voice-operated computer on wheels–without Microsoft’s ‘blue screen of death’ so far.
I’ve had my disagreements with Pulitzer Prize winner Dan Neil of the LA Times. But not when he says of the Fusion, “Wait, so somebody invented the car of the future and didn’t tell us?”
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