What's in a name? Not as much as Ford top dog Alan Mulally would like to think. The fabled Taurus left Ford's line-up mere months ago, but its lingering aura of success is already morphing into a strong aroma of manure. To wit: the word on the street is that Ford execs will announce tomorrow at the Chicago Auto Show that the Ford Five Hundred sedan, having met with a tepid response since its 2004 launch, will be re-christened — wait for it — the Ford Taurus.
After logging a giddying $12.7 billion loss for 2006, it's easy to see why Ford would get misty-eyed over a car that sold nearly 7 million units during its twenty-year run. But unlike, say, transplanting a heart, you can't give new life to a loser just by grafting on a winner's name. For that matter, it remains to be seen whether Ford's recent leadership transplant will take or be rejected — the antibodies we call shareholders being fickle creatures at best.
Ford may find customers are fickle, too — especially when they're treated like cattle. Mulally is no Diddy, and calling the Five Hundred a Taurus is like calling Quayle a Kennedy: at the end of the day, no one will buy it. If Ford execs think this shell game is a substitute for building a twenty-first-century company, here's a news flash: A con by any other name still smells like bull.
[Source: The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)]
