You're right. I totally fogot about the TBird. I have a friend who owns one but they did the same there also. You would think they would have learned their lesson. Dum-dee-dum-dumb.
I used that example to my dealership almost 9 months ago. Guess What! The sales manager told me that "That was then, this is Now" People and silly games. History repeats itself.
Marine One said:
You would have thought that Ford would have learned its lesson after the Thunderbird fiasco.
When these cars first came out, I had a salesman tell me if I wanted one I would need to leave a $10,000 refundable deposit, and then when the cars started arriving I would get whatever car matched my number on the waiting list. The first person on the list got the first car, the second person the second car, and so on. If you didn't like the car that came in that corresponded to your order number sequence, they would refund the deposit. According to this bozo, there was no way to simply order what you wanted. I'm not sure how much he knew. In fairness I didn't talk to him at the Ford store, but even still the attitude was one of take it or leave it. Much like the Shelby, they alienated a lot of people with their sales approach,a dn look what happened to the T-Bird.
I have found when working with corporations that innovation and new ideas are typically stifled. It's like politicians, nobody wants to make a mistake so therefore no new ideas get implemented. They incubate new designs, new manufacturing methods, etc... but since everybody came from the same failed schools of business, nobody wants to try new business or marketing ideas. Nobody in marketing would ever say, let's stick our neck out and try something new. How about if you build what each customer wants. Not a cookie cutter design that we think they want.
Ford won't take a chance and build a reasonable quantity of something that they might have to discount later if they build too many. That is just the most stupid idea I have ever heard. Then they end up discounting everything because sales suck and foreign manufacturers are kicking their ass. So when they finally have a product with higher demand, they get stupid and don't build enough. If you work for Ford and have any involvement in some of the dumbass decisions coming out of your company, I would go work for a smaller company or a foreign company that is kicking your ass and learn what does work.
As an example of I practice what I preach, I just won my second bid against Cisco and Motorola. I have 9 employees in my company. I didn't discount one item. I just gave the customer what they wanted, not some cookie cutter design that the big boys told them they wanted. I love big corporate america. They are going to make me rich with their cover my ass attitude and lack of innovation.