Ford Car Talk

Lincoln is looking in a different direction and aims to produce smaller vehicles as sales figures of large units and the Navigator drop over time. You might be seeing the smallest cars donning the Lincoln badge in the near future. It will be a very bold move as other luxury car makers have veered away from rolling off small cars to a U.S. market which might not be ready for them yet.

Lincoln might have some surprises for its market in the near future to push the brand back to prominence. There is a loud buzz that the car maker is planning to release a compact which will be deriving its DNA from Ford. There hasn’t been any confirmation though if it will be used as the global platform for the Focus.

The car manufacturer have concept cars exploring the idea of providing smaller cars for consumers but these vehicles still need to go into production. Experts are not sure if Lincoln will roll the dice and take the risk to assemble these vehicles.

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As sales reports come in this August, the auto industry is expected to report not more than 10 million sold units. Ford recently announced that its total sales are up by 2% and year-on-year jumped by as much as 9%. The improvement in the performance is partly attributed to the government’s Cash for Clunkers program.

The numbers of Ford looks solid and a lot of experts want to be as optimistic as possible to see a turnaround for the whole of the auto industry.

The 9% increase in retail sales from August 2008 to this year marks the first recovery of the figures since November 2007. Aside from citing the CARS, Ford also looks to the new and more fuel efficient members of their fleet.

What gives perspective to the jump up in sales figures is the projected 10 million units rolling out of dealerships. The volume prediction is about a 40% drop from the 2008 figures. The overall figure is seen to have risen 2% from the November 2007 sales reports.

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Ford Motor Co. struggles in the fourth quarter of 2008 without any help from the federal government. The company burned through funds amounting to $5.5 billion in the last stretch of the previous year.

The car manufacturer finished 2008 with a $13.4 billion cash reserves. Ford will be drawing down available credit lines of $10.1 billion to address concerns on the rocky global economy.

Ford files a net loss amounting to $5.9 billion for the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to a year over year $2.5 billion. The car manufacturer closes 2008 as its third year of not earning any profits. Pretax operation loss was recorded on their books at $3.7 billion compared to $620 million in 2007.

The whole of the auto industry faced an unusual major slowdown in markets all over the globe recorded during the last three months.

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