Word: sedans
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...many cars have dual personalities: you're either a family sedan, a racy roadster, a minivan that no degree of swishy styling will sex up. Of course, carmakers try their best to convince consumers otherwise, producing performance editions, limited editions, two- and four-door flavors of the same model. It's done for the same reason we have Cherry Coke and a gazillion spinoffs of Law & Order ? everyone wants to maximize their "brand value." And this is especially true if you're in a capital intensive business like auto manufacturing, and your products stay on the market for years before...
...where he was managing the Argentina operation. He had made some enemies while stamping out suspected fraud. As he drove from his office, armed men in two cars ambushed him and riddled his car with bullets. Smith got shot in the thigh but managed to smash his blood-splattered sedan through his assailants' vehicles and outlast them in a long chase. "It was real James Bond stuff," says Smith, 49. And that wasn't even his worst day. Two years later, he and 1,000 other HSBC employees were trapped in their offices by a mob that tried to burn...
...orders that Horbury needed first to develop with them a basic company design language before encouraging them to use it to become more innovative. "I think we're getting it now," says Horbury. As an example of the new thinking, he points to the Fusion, a sporty, affordable midsize sedan that Ford hopes will compete with the Toyota Camry, a perennial top seller that also boasts a new design...
...only got stronger lately. Two highly regarded Brits, Peter Horbury and Martin Smith, are in charge of design for Ford's North American and European divisions, and last year Ford lured a hot hand from Chrysler, Freeman Thomas. At Chrysler, he sketched the initial concept for the 300 sedan, one of Chrysler's biggest hits in a decade. At Ford, Thomas has already won praise for a concept car, the Reflex, featuring solar panels, butterfly doors and internal insulation made of recycled Nike shoes. "Bill [Ford] has come out and said, 'We're going to do more compelling and emotional...
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...