Never trust wikipedia. According to them, U.S. market Mitsubishi Mirages came from the factory with the same turbocharged four-cylinder engine used in the AWD eclipse.

For that matter, Hyundai advertisers compared the Azera and Sonata to the Lexus LS and BMW 5-Series, but I don’t think they expected buyers to cross shop the two either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dht4E6yBwsE

Around the same time, Fiat pitched the X1/9 as a bargain basement exotic Italian mid-engined sports car … but didn’t actually compete with Ferrari :).

My first car was a 1979 green Granada. Somebody at Wikipedia is playing a major prank or is way, way over-medicated to make that claim.

PickupMan

Not everyone has forgotten. I try to explain to people all the time how many years of record profit GM would have to have, just to payback their bailout, err, loan. Ford is in a different boat, but it is also taking on water.

The only certainty is bankruptcy.

The only uncertainty is when and on what terms.

Obama hearts Ford. Ford is blue, and Obama has got blue state soul – enough to nominate Granmole for commerce-and-jobs czar.

Which means that their “turnaround” plans can’t just be enough to stablise sales, but to expand at a phenominal rate in order to pay these loans back. And I’m not just talking about the government loans, I’m talking about the private banks who want that money back (considering they have a few cash problem, themselves).

Let’s just consider the loans Ford secured for Alan Mulally’s turnaround plan. They mortgaged EVERYTHING and came up with $25bn. Now, let’s forget interest and concentrate on the core amount. This means Ford need to pony up $25bn from somewhere. Now consider that at the height of the “SUV craze” (circa 2000), Ford was earning on average $1.93bn per quarter. Which means that Ford would need to give all their profits for 13 quarters (over 3 years) in order to pay the loans back. Now, Ford won’t do that, they’ll pay them off incrementally, which means the interest will mount up. This will not help Ford at all with their turnaround plans.

Now considering that Alan Mulally’s tenure will get Ford stable, they’ll need the next CEO to expand Ford ORGANICALLY to create the money needed to pay all these loans back. Now, top brass at Ford believe that Mark Fields is practically a shoe-in for the role…..

Expect Ford to be in a similar “cash burn” situation 10 years from now…..

Lower burn rate than GM. From most indications, more dinero totally available than GM.

Yet somehow, GM is going to make in through 2009 without any more cash. Uh-huh.

@jkross22,

I hear Tom Petty’s Freefallin’. But that’s just me.