Ford's Created Another Monster, Maybe

Here's a question: Would Swedish meatballs go with General Tso's Chicken?

Why am I asking? Well, it's because Ford is selling Volvo to the Chinese.

In particular, Ford is selling their Swedish boxy sedan division to Geely, one of the larger Chinese car manufacturers.

In a sense, this is a good thing because Ford doesn't have to worry about Volvo's dead weight. In the time Ford owned it, the Swedish car maker never posted a profit. Ford can't keep bleeding money, so getting rid of Volvo is a quick way to stop the flow.

But some people think it's a very shortsighted move.

Ford has sold Geely a carmaker and distribution network that's already set up in major markets across the country. Geely can pair it's cheaper cars with the more expensive Volvos and have the classic combo of basic and luxury cars.

So Ford has, in all likelihood, created a major competitor.

But that's what Ford does. It creates competitors. It's in the company's nature and in the family's DNA.

A hundred years ago, Henry Ford didn't instantly found the company that uses his name. There were three attempts. The first went up in flames faster than an oil rig fire. The second, though, lasted much longer, but without Henry. You see, Henry Ford had the same temper as a drunk, cracked out, grizzly bear. He pissed off his backers, who promptly threw him out of the company.

The backers hired a man named Henry Leland, who restarted car production under the name Cadillac. After a few years Cadillac cemented its reputation as a fine motor car and was bought out by William C. Durant's General Motors Corporation. At that point, GM already owned Buick and Oldsmobile, so by adding Cadillac, Durant created the basis for what became one of the largest companies in the world.

If Henry Ford hadn't pissed off his backers, Cadillac wouldn't exist and General Motors would have been a very different company.

Henry went on to create a third company, under his name, and created the Model T. That's where the Dodge brothers, Horace and John, came into the picture.

They were contracted to build chassis parts for Ford's cars. For a while the relationship was a good one and both parties prospered. But, eventually, Ford either pissed off the Dodge brothers or they got tired of being working for good old Henry.

So the Dodge brothers went out and started their own car company. It was a success, one of the top ten selling car companies in the US. But, after the brothers died in the early 20, Walter P. Chrysler came along and bought the company. This created the core for what we now know as the Chrysler Group.

If Ford hadn't alienated the brothers, Dodge wouldn't exist today.

Then, in the mid '20s, Ford pissed off (see a trend here?) one of his major supervisors, William S. Knudsen. This caused Knudsen to go work for GM, where he was put in charge of the Chevrolet division. At that point, Chevrolet was in a bit of a pickle. Back then it was in a different market position than it is today. Its cars were in the mid-luxury segment, rather like Buick is today. Chevrolets were selling, but not at the level management wanted them to.

So Knudsen took the car downmarket, putting it in direct competition with Ford. He also streamlined production.

Chevrolet sales took off and left Ford in the dust. Over the next 60 years, Chevrolet would stay Number 1 in the American market, with Ford surpassing it only a handful of times.

If Henry Ford hadn't done what he did best, pissing people off, Chevrolet might not exist and GM would be much, much different.

But where would the world be if Henry Ford had mastered his temper? Certainly, other companies would have risen and taken Ford on, but I'm not sure they would have been worthy competitors like GM and Chrysler.

The unending war between the Big Three gave us the Muscle Car War, the cheap V8 engine, acres of chrome and countless pieces of important engineering. It's proof that competition is what powers industry. There is no reason to make your product better unless you're trying to beat the other son of a bitch at his own game.

So let the Chinese cars come. With Ford's track record, it should be one hell of a show.

From the Edges of the Market, a New Car Approaches

Suzuki is best known for their motorcycles, dirtbikes and ATVs––things that bounce through dirt like a hyperactive rabbit and sound like a pissed off weadeater.

But they also make cars.

Seriously.

But they're the kind of cars that no one notices. They're the kind of cars that sit at the edge of the market waiting for people to notice them. They're not particularly bad cars, but they don't have anything to recommend themselves.

For example, the Suzuki Verona:

It's a badge engineered Daewoo, which should be enough to send this thing to the lowest pits of Car Hell. But, in all seriousness, it's a decent way to get from A to B without any major trouble. It blends into the background like tan vinyl siding blends into a subdivision.

In the end, though, there was no real reason to buy this car unless you absolutely couldn't have a Chevy, Kia, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Saturn or Dodge.

Like I said, Suzuki is kind of like that kid you always saw in middle school who sat in the back of the classroom with his hand held up for ten minutes and never got called on.

There was only one previous car that Suzuki made that I found even remotely interesting.

It was the Aerio hatchback:

Now I know that this car is, again, nothing special.

But what I really liked about it was the interior.

Actually, the interior is cheap as hell. The only thing I found cool was the thin slice that made up the gauge cluster above the steering wheel. In fact, I still think it's kind of neat.

But, the fact that I found this car remotely interesting proves that children really are entertained by shiny things.

Anyway, things are changing.

The first hint of this was the Suzuki SX4 hatchback that came out in 2006.

It's a nicely rounded, yet crisp car. It's available with AWD for under $20 thousand, and seems to have its own personality. Granted, it's a slightly redesigned Fiat, but it still looks like a nice car.

The interior isn't bad either.

While it's not groundbreaking or class leading (which goes for the whole car as well) it's still a step above what Suzuki offered before. That's what matters.

When a company breaks into a market there's two ways to do this. Either create something that totally dominates the competition, or start slowly and nip at other companies' heels.

The first option often leads to a company going bust because dominating the competition takes shit tons of cash.

Suzuki (who isn't dirt poor, but not bathing with money) has taken the second option, which takes a lot of time and Job like levels of patience. Honda and Toyota are the best examples of this. They wait, plan, build up a brand and then are suddenly at the top of the game, or so it appears.

Suzuki now has the kind of car that they can build their brand around. It's called the Kizashi:

While it sounds like a new sushi dish, or a sneezed Japanese greeting, it's a very nice looking car. It kind of reminds me of the newest Volkswagen Jetta.

But the Kizashi is entirely new and built only by Suzuki. That's the first sign of a serious car builder, no outsourcing of product.

So here is a nice looking sedan that, according to Automobile and Motor Trend, has some form of sporting pretensions. Its suspension was tuned at the Nurburgring in Germany, which is a race track that every gear head in the world has heard of and also a place that the average consumer couldn't care less about.

So it handles itself well enough to put a smile on someone's face. If that someone cares how well their car will carve through a corner.

While it's not in this picture, the Kizashi is available with a six-speed manual gearbox.

Leather is optional, as are all the other potentially useless options like memory seating and parking sensors.

So the Kizashi is shaping up to be a very mainstream, normal and probably vanilla car.

For once, that's not a bad thing. Suzuki needs to prove that it can build good cars that, most importantly, people would want to own. If they can market this car correctly as a viable alternative to the Hondas, Chevys, Kias and so forth, it should be a success.

I don't think that people like driving the same thing as everybody else. If Suzuki can build up its image and recognition with this car, the car world might just get a little bit better.