Word: mustangs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...collar consumerism. Brilliant, cantankerous Henry Ford made the first mass-produced car, the Model T, and paid workers enough so they could afford to buy one. That makes great-grandson Bill industrial royalty: he comes from a competitive, dynastic clan that cannot be separated from the nameplate on your Mustang. But he also has a complex, even squishy side; he's a passionate environmentalist who has studied Buddhist philosophy and thinks a lot about the future of the world...
Coming up with exciting designs will be crucial to Ford's success. Until recently, with the exception of a new Mustang, an instant hit, Ford has failed to produce cars that have energized the market. Peter Horbury, the company's director of design and Volvo's former design chief, whom Ford brought to Detroit in 2004, was stunned by Ford Motor's rulebound ways. "I told the designers to just get on with what they were doing," he says, "and they looked at me terrified, like, What does that mean?" The designers were so used to following orders that Horbury...
Bill Ford is so committed to the environment that his office is decorated with biodegradable curtains and carpets. He sits at his uncle Edsel's old desk, near a photo of himself breaking boards to earn a black belt in Taekwondo. His favorite car: Mustang. He recently spoke with TIME's Dorinda Elliott and Joseph Szczesny. Excerpts...
DIED. WILSON PICKETT, 64, volatile R&B star whose gravelly, raunchy delivery on such 1960s hits as Mustang Sally and In the Midnight Hour inspired the 1991 film The Commitments and helped earn him the moniker Wicked Pickett; of a heart attack; in Reston, Va. Despite drug and legal battles, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer remained inventive and determined, answering the disco craze with explosive live performances, which he continued until shortly before his death, and meriting a 2000 Grammy nomination for It's Harder Now, his first album in a decade...
Ford designers could use an unshackling. Aside from a few critically acclaimed hits, such as the new Mustang and GT sports car, the fleet is clogged with bland wheels. Car critics pounded Mays for the 2005 launch of the Ford Five Hundred, a middle-market sedan with all the élan of Wonder Bread. Ford's revival of the legendary Thunderbird, in 2001, flopped so badly that production was suspended last year. Geriatric wonders like the Grand Marquis and Town Car still roll out of Mercury and Lincoln plants, headed mainly for corporate fleets. Only Mazda, which Ford controls, appears...