Ford Kills 19-Foot Gas-Guzzler Excursion

The last Excursion land-boat was made at Ford's Louisville plant on Friday September 30th, 2005 (two days ago). Ford says that stopping production of the beast (at 9200 lbs/4170 kilograms standard gross weight, it probably had its own gravity field, and you could drown someone in the 44 gallons/166 liters fuel tank) was a business decision: In 2000, they sold 50,000 Excursions, and since then, sales have stalled. The sales of Ford's three biggest SUVs (Excursion, Expedition and Explorer) have fallen by more than 24% in the first three months of 2005 alone (and gas costs a lot more now than it did in early 2005, so without the summer discounts, it would have been a lot worse). Unfortunately, Ford isn't converting the Louisville plant to the production of small fuel-efficient vehicles; it will instead make Ford Super-Duty trucks (at least more utilitarian than big SUVs, but still). We can expect to see more stories about SUV mammoths bitting the dust in the near future. Finally.