I was just listening to Rush over the noon hour and he said some against - SUV's - wacko - group (I didn't catch it all) has successfully campaigned to get Ford to discontinue production of the Excursion in 2 years. He said we should support the "Coalition for Vehicle Choice" .

A Ford engineer called in - he was upset because he had worked on the Excursion and said it was a good money maker for Ford - he said Ford makes around $10,000 on each one. He said that not only should Americans be the ones choosing what to drive, but that these "far-out" groups are hurting American industry also.

 

I fear there will be a Yugo revival
The S.U.V. ****'S are not going to go away soon.

I heard that a "Solar" car nearly killed a guy when it burned down his house from "over charging". Now they're dangerous to drive AND own:-(

 

I heard it on the local news last night. I live in the California bay area, the hot bed of the biggest bunch of anti-SUV SOB in the known universe. So when the talking head on the local news channel started the report she had a twinkle in her eye and a large smile on her face. News report went something like this: "Ford announced that it will quite make the Ford Excursion SUV at the end of the 2003 model year. Reports of low fuel mileage are to blame, the 7 foot tall, 19 foot long SUV only gets 10 MILES TO THE GALLON"! The real kicker was when they showed video clips of the evil SUV, they keep showing pictures of a Ford Expedition and a Chevy Suburban. They showed a side view of an Excursion only once. Well, what to you expect form a bunch empty headed pampered liberal media types. I guess all those SUVs look the same from the back seat of their limos.

 

I think you got it Dan, but let's not give the narrow minded self interests groups so much credit for discontinuing a vehicle product line. In reality the big three don't respond to self interest groups if the product in question still makes good business sense to produce. Rush will never give the straight facts on topics like this because his whole career is founded on controversial subjects. There would be nothing to talk about if he reported the actual facts.

I have a used 2000 Excursion V10 4x4 that gets 13mpg on the highway, which isn't bad for a 7,600Lb vehicle. But I only bought it because I got such a great deal on it at the time. It's really more vehicle then I need but I'll keep it. I believe the real reason Ford is deleting the Excursion is that they don't want it competing for sales between the new 2003 Expedition and Navigator. The 03 Excursion is actually cheaper then a loaded 03 Expedition and considerable cheaper then a base 03 Navigator. Yes, deleting the Excursion from FoMoCo vehicle line up will help the company's over all fuel economy rating but not by much because the Excursion is a small part of the total truck sales.

Since the Excursion is built on the Super Duty chassis it can pull a 10,000Lb trailer but only a ball hitch type trailer. This limits the functionality of this product line because a F350 Crew Cab has four full size doors, large cargo area and can pull a 10, 000Lb ball hitch trailer or a fifth wheel style trailer, which are becoming very popular.

The main purpose of the Excursion was to take over the Suburban market that's were it got the nick name "Suburban Killer" but it never really accomplished that goal. Although, that was an unrealistic goal to start with in my opinion.

No, I really don't believe the tree hugging, import car driving, special interest groups succeeded in pressuring Ford Motor Company into deleting a truck product.

 

A loaded 2003 PSD Excursion Limited 4x4 is about $50,000 . That is alot more than a loaded 2003 Expedition. The Chevy Tahoe and Suburban are like the Ford Expedition and Excursion.

I think the 2003 Excursion with the new 6.0L PSD and 5 speed auto will be a hot seller to people wanting an SUV that can tow 20,000 GCWR and still get 20 mpg when not towing on the highway. And with a 44 gal fuel tank it should have double the range of a Suburban towing a 12,000lb trailer. The higher the weight the bigger the advantage in mpg over gas engines.

Joe