Actually, the Ford Fusion is built on a slightly stretched Mazda 6 platform.
I’ve had five Mazdas and never had any problems. Perhaps they’ve gone downhill in the last 10 years, but this is the first I’ve heard of it.
Knew it was one of the number cars.
It could just be coincidence, but I’ve heard several people talk about mechanical problems with Mazdas, and they’re recalling all the rotary-engine RX-8s because of engine fires (and oil consumption issues.)
I’ve got a friend who works for a company that does focus groups, and well, let’s just say that if they’d hire him, I’d never trust anything out of a focus group.
I didn’t know the RX-8 had a rotary engine. I had a few friends who had engine trouble with their RX-7 rotaries but I didn’t mention it because I thought they quit making them a long time ago.
I’ve seen it top more than one “worst SUV” list. Claims are poorly built, overpriced, corners cut, poor safety test performance, bad gas mileage even for an SUV. Two of my co-workers have bought and gotten rid of them in the last year.
On a somewhat serious note (and I should add Tuckerfan that you and I have enjoyed talking cars many times over the years) I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the modern plethora of “featureless blobs” arrived at the same time as modern mass-production computer CADCAM systems - in particular, the desire by designers to incorporate as much aerodynamic fluidity into a car as well as functionality. The net result is that a lot of modern cars look very similar nowadays - all the rounded lines and rounded headlight and taillight assemblies etc - all of it is driven by CADCAM engineering, and clearly, computer modelling makes for a more slippery car, but it makes it increasingly unlikely that we’ll ever see a '66 GTO, or a '67 Shelby GT500, or a '69 SS Camaro, or a '71 Barracuda again. Which is a real shame because what the car industry has shown us, in particular Detroit, is that change for the sake of it is not, by definition, always better.
Personally, if I were President of the Internet, I would pass a law that says every major manufacturer has to take their two best “looking” designs in history, and then modernise those designs with modern production and manufacturing techniques. We’d see all those beautiful cars once again - albeit with modern window sills and modern chassis construction etc.
But do ya think they’ll listen to me? Huh? 
Well, Dodge IS building the Challenger, and the new Mustang looks pretty retro.
Would I love to see a modern Corvette Stingray split-window? Sure I would. A modern Chevelle, with a 454 AND Chevy’s Active Fuel Management system? Sign me up.
I was going to mention those cars but I submitted my post before I remembered to add them. We agree on that note, it seems. The current Mustang is quite a brave design, I feel, given the obviously “non daring” environment that modern Detroit engineers seemingly live in.
Also, some kudos to GM is due, to be fair. That LS7 with the titanium conrods and other titanium bits is a real gem in an otherwise forgettable product line.
Add to that the Pontiac Solstice, which is a nice looking car (though you can keep the planned Camaro revival, bleh) and while not directly a Detroit product, the new Jag XK is a nice looking car, IMHO.
I’m convinced.
I’ll NEVER buy another Chev. in this or the next lifetime. 
Boo Boo Foo, it’s so good to hear from someone else who hates these curvy, overly bulky, jellybean-shaped eyesores on the road. Everyone else I talk to seems to think they’re a stylish, up-to-date, futuristic improvent. I think they’re hideous, disgusting, and they make me genuinely depressed.
The thing that pisses me off most is that TRUCKS are getting bitten by this evil bug too. The new trucks from Chevy, Ford and Dodge all make me retch, but Chevy/GMC in particular.
I cannot fathom how anyone could want the new Suburban or Tahoe. The huge, gaudy grille with the gigantic Chevy logo, the bulky-ass, thick, cheap looking door handles, the asymmetrical lines of the windows, the overall curvy and rounded shape of the vehicle - it’s a disgrace. The 90s Suburban and Tahoe were so straightforward and unpretentious, with clean straight lines, square windows, and a rugged masculine look. These new ones look like toys.
I remember when Stephen Colbert commented on this ad on his show- something about how it appears to infer that Rosa Parks should have forgotten all about staying on that bus and bought a Chevy instead. She is a bizarre choice, but I presume she isn’t copyrighted like Dr. King is, so it’s cheaper to show her instead.
That Ford Truck Man is Toby Keith.
[quote= Boyo Jim
And there’s some other country moron with a guitar strutting around on a truck chassis – I don’t even know what he plays but i HATE that guy.[/quote]
And if you didn’t hate him already, he’s the guy who capitalized on 9/11 by recording that “The Angry American” song, the one where he says, “We’ll put a boot in your ass/It’s the American Way.” :rolleyes:
So, having used his music to sell pickup trucks and war, he’s completed 2/3 of the country music promotional trifecta. Anyone know if he’s done a beer commerical? Maybe he’s three for three! 
And if you didn’t hate him already, he’s the guy who capitalized on 9/11 by recording that “The Angry American” song, the one where he says, “We’ll put a boot in your ass/It’s the American Way.” :rolleyes:
So, having used his music to sell pickup trucks and war, he’s completed 2/3 of the country music promotional trifecta. Anyone know if he’s done a beer commerical? Maybe he’s three for three!
Which is less important to me personally?
John Cougar Mellencamp
Chevrolet
The Super Bowl
Too close to call.
Tris
Fuck Mellencamp and Chevy and that shitty ubiquitous ad.
Didn’t Mellencamp used to write protest songs about the little guy being swallowed up by big business? Now he’s shilling for a giant (crappy) corporation. The money they paid him will probably be worth about 3 weeks of crack. I hope he enjoys them.
Watered down pansy ass Springsteen wanna-be motherfucker.
Maybe if American car companies spent money on making better cars instead of wasting it on patriotic propaganda, people wouldn’t buy foreign cars.
Fucking assholes. I’d wish for the company to go out of business, but I know that the fucking overpaid thieving CEOs would just laugh all the way to the fucking bank while waving bye-bye to all the newly-unemployed factory workers.
I just love the I-can’t-be-bothered-to-know-anything-about-the-automotive-industry-but-I’m-gonna-chime-in-anyway threads. Proclamations of boycotting domestic goods (based on a song by a country musician) followed by blatant misunderstandings about the status of the industry make me giggle. Oh no, they showed the flooded streets of Louisiana after Katrina to show that their trucks are used during the arduous task of rebuilding a decimated city! The travesty of it all! Do you think the construction industry uses Toyota Tacomas and Honda Ridgelines? No, they don’t, and the ad is just preaching to it’s choir anyway. I’d love to know how many of the enlightened automotive consumers here would boycott Toyota if they knew the extent of shared technology from Toyota that’s in some of GM’s vehicles. Probably not too many, but you’d have to if you were to follow the same logic. It’s just so much easier to loathe a brand when you don’t like the song they use in their television spot, though. I sure as heck know I wanted a Camry back in 1999 when they ran an ad with Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” track alongside the image of a Camry pacing along through beautiful scenery. That was so hot. Those sexy straight curves, fat and comfy all-season tires, and staid aerodynamics turn me on, and so does Right Said Fred. And Toyota isn’t racist or bigoted or nationalistic, or anything, so that gives me positive inner feelings and makes me feel good about my purchase because Toyota actually cares and wants the world to be a happy green place and GM just wants to turn it into an industrial smokestack wasteland of oppression and corporate greed. Toyota makes cars that make flowers grow and birds sing, and I know it’s true because I read it somewhere.
Yes, domestics suffer slow sales compared to imports, but a lot of that is due to the kind of warped consumer mentality prevalent in this thread. This isn’t the 80’s or 90’s anymore, and GM is on the upswing with a revival of virtually all their brands. No, I am not a truck driver and I despise SUVs and most of the people who drive them [recklessly]. What I don’t do is use that as a premise for panning the domestic auto industry. I don’t suppose anyone would be interested in sharing their informed opinion on the long-standing partnership between GM and Toyota to develop hybrid drivetrains? How about Ford’s cooperation with Volvo (and to a larger extent, Mazda) to develop lighter, stronger and safer modular platforms? How about Dodge’s dealings with Daimler Benz to create small, eco-friendly cars for the European market (and vice versa)? Every domestic manufacturer is in bed with at least one foreign manufacturer, and both sides gain different benefits from the cooperation, but naaah, we can’t be bothered to acknowledge any of that … let’s just lump all the domestics together, call them Chevy Silverado, then universally pan them and piss all over their ads!
Apparently, Mellencamp is on a roll now!
There are a lot of commercials that I am sick of due to their continuous repetition and their method of promoting the product, but it would never cause me to boycott or ignore an entire line of cars or their builder. Television advertising is only remotely related to reality, so everything I see advertised on TV is taken with a grain of salt. It is meant to attract attention and promote the products at hand, but not always the way we would prefer.
I remember during the last few years of Camaro production that Chevy was promoting the car as “American as hot dogs and apple pie” and that it was made in the country “that invented rock & roll.”
Really? Rock & roll was invented in Canada? Well, that was where the Camaro was being made, so it must be true. A few years later the Camaro was dropped from production for a year, and then some time later, it was killed off entirely. Not because of poor advertising, but because the Mustang had been killing Camaro sales for years and the demand wasn’t there anymore. The Mustang has always been promoted as “American”, but there are an awful lot of Mexico parts on that pony car today. But Ford promotes the Mustang very well, relying heavily on its heritage and performance image. If Ford could promote their other cars as well as they do the Mustang, they probably wouldn’t be in the situation they are now.
Advertising is all image. The method of promoting that image may be irritating, but it doesn’t mean the product is somehow inferior just because the advertising is. Over the years, Americans (or at least, the American media) has become more obsessed with “celebrity”. That is how people like Paris Hilton can become so widely known by doing so little. “Celebrity” attracts a lot of attention, especially if the celeb can sing, so it isn’t surprising that many commercials are pitched by a singer and the commercial is driven by a loud and pulsating soundtrack. It attracts attention and demands that you look and listen, whether you are interested and entertained or not.
You just have to appreciate the commercials for what they really are, fluff. You may hate all those damn truck commercials interupting your football game, and really want to wipe the smirk off that Toby Keiths’ mouth, but if you find yourself in the market to buy a new pickup truck, you might want to go down to your local Ford dealer and check out that new F-150. There might be something worthwhile to that advertising after all.
Mexican? If that’s true, which parts, and where did you hear that? The Mustang’s always been built in Michigan. If anything, it now has a lot of Japanese in it. It’s built right alongside the Mazda 6 at the very same plant in Flat Rock because they share a lot of components (control blade suspension parts, if I’m not mistaken). There was an article in the Wall Street Journal some time back about how the foreign parts content for the current Mustang is higher than that of even Toyota’s Sienna minivan. Imagine that, a Toyota built right here in good old Kentucky (and as of last year, in Indiana as well) and it has more domestic parts in it than a Mustang. Say what you will about that, as long as you don’t tell Sienna buyers that American labor produced their precious Toyota, and with broken American parts too! They might go and find a reason to shit all over it since America can’t build vehicles as well as the Japanese, right?
Should I mention the incredible levels of quality improvement in the Hyundai Sonata ever since they stopped building it in Korea and moved production to Alabama last year? Domestic bashers just can’t win this debate anymore because all their favorite best-selling foreign cars are built here or in Canada, but they continue to amuse with their ignorance of the fact nonetheless, usually by redirecting their disgust toward the choice of music in a commercial for a domestic truck, or better still, citing a bad experience they had with a Chrysler K-car twenty years ago. :rolleyes: