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Fordasaurus wrecks
By Matthew Quane
mquane@mscd.edu

Extinction, like death, is a natural part of life on Earth.

Species unable to adapt to the severe mood swings that Mother Nature throws at them are banished beneath the crust of the Earth, and their legacy is reduced to exhaust from our methods of transport.

And every now and then, it comes time to put to rest a species of our own creation.

Yes, Ford. It is time for your business to kick the collective bucket.

Illustration by Andrew Howerton • ahowert2@mscd.edu

After posting a record loss of $12.7 billion last year, Ford Motors has earned itself a place – or after 103 years, maybe even a wing – in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

I look forward to the day when I am able to take my children to the museum and resting ever silently next to the tyrannosaurus rex is the equally terrifying, gas-guzzling, redneck-owned F-350.

There is an implicit understanding that a certain percentage of the working population, due in part to the nature of their work, needs the utility offered by trucks. their beastly mechanisms to that demographic long ago – those needing utility are guaranteed customers.

Instead, Ford markets trucks to the everyman. The American populace is assaulted on a daily basis by commercials featuring blue-collar workers driving pretty, pristine trucks with nothing in the bed.

When did trucks become equivalent to opulence? Why would a consumer make the decision to buy an overpriced chunk of steel that costs more to drive to its death than to buy in the first place? Well, the quick answer is that those who buy into the advertising are idiots.

Fortunately for the world, Ford’s losses indicate a drop in idiocy across the nation, but trucks remain the most heavily bought automobile in the United States. That being said, it does not take a genius to figure out to where all that money disappeared.

Ford blames the losses on an early sales slump combined with year-end restructuring costs, but the answer is much simpler. Due to its superior adaptability and focus on fuel-efficient cars, the Japanese automotive industry is effectively destroying its American counterpart.

In response to their shortcomings, Ford will be closing 16 plants and cutting nearly 45,000 jobs. If this means fewer trucks chugging about the highway system, then it is progressive.

Of course, we still have other backward-minded companies such as General Motors, which set the previous automotive loss record in 2005 at $10 billion, to wait out. GM’s response to their loss was not to cut truck and SUV production, but rather to introduce new lines – which is the step that Ford will most likely take.

But worry not, brave consumer. The reaper comes for them next.