Reading the latest car sales results at detnews.com, I noticed an interesting article about entitled Minivans reach end of the line about how Ford Motor is in the process of dropping their minivan line and leaning towards a ‘crossover’ combination minivan/SUV that is based on the “Fairlane” concept unveiled at the 2005 Detroit auto show.
Ford Motor announced that production of the Mercury Monterey ended this week and that its sister vehicle, the Ford Freestar, would continue through the 2007 model year but be discontinued at the end of the 2007 model year. Other sources said production of the Freestar will halt next spring.
Strike One, the Aerostar
The quirky minivan (built on a Ranger chassis) with rear-wheel drive that never found it’s niche. I had a family member that had one to experience the now famous ’seizing air conditioner compressor’ syndrome and the famous belt breaking phenomeon they were known for having. In fact, they are now a ‘dime-a-dozen’ car as around my part of the country, the ham radio operators love them because they are cheap and the metal roof gives their roving ham shack a great ground plane. This and other nagging problems led to
Strike Two, the Windstar
This minivan (built on the Taurus platform) was well documented with massive failures with the 3.8 L V6 concerning head gasket failures and other catastrophic internal engine failures. I knew two people who had them with the engine failures and after getting them repaired under warranty ‘dump-traded’ them.
strong Strike Three, The Freestar (Windstar II)
Sales never took off based on the past problem-plaged versions of the last two minivans. Also, since the concept Fairlane is about to be introduced and more customers are going over to the Freestyle (based on the Five Hundred). The death knell was obvious.
Interesting, that the concept was developed in the 1970’s but rejected by Ford management. However, when then president of the Ford Motor Company Lee Iacocca was fired in 1978, he declassified the concept and took the ideas over to rival Chrysler who implemented the concept of the minivan and the K-Car and Chrysler never looked back being the world largest producers of minivans.
