While Mulally was at Boeing, where he was responsible for developing what became the very successful 777 aircraft, he brought to Seattle for consultation the Ford team that had made the Taurus the best-selling car in America for five years. It, however, became stale, was supplanted by Toyota's Camry, and was discontinued in October 2006.
It has, however, come back and is being revamped as part of plans to build all the company's products on a few "platforms" -- powertrains, underpinnings, suspension systems. Many of these platforms are currently used in cars that are consistently profitable in the European, Asian and Latin American markets.
Having reduced its work force 50 percent in three years, by February Ford will have cut salaried personnel costs 40 percent. Most important, it is now on a path to prune, soon, almost half of what have been 76 nameplates. Having shed Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover, it seems to be moving toward the sale of Volvo and of what remains of its reduced investment in Mazda. Soon the company will consist of Ford, Lincoln and -- perhaps -- Mercury, with consolidated dealerships (currently 3,790, down from 4,396 three years ago).
Total industry sales in America this year -- about 10.5 million, down from 17 million in 2005 -- are, on a per capita basis, the lowest since World War II. There is zero likelihood of industry sales sufficient for three U.S. companies to share them profitably with "transplants" -- factories producing cars with foreign nameplates. A 1979 bailout enabled Chrysler to survive to be a problem today. It almost certainly will not survive.
So the task of the proposed "car czar" -- silliness on stilts -- would be to supervise the pruning of GM's nameplates and dealerships. Anyway, the most qualified person for that ill-conceived and unenviable position already has a more promising job, as Ford's CEO.