Ford has it in mind to change all that, of course, and is busy spending a fortune to make it so. Through the fall, company president Bobbie Gaunt has been leading a cross-country tour (it's the first time in a decade that Ford has had a dealer intro in Canada and the first time ever it's invited all dealership employees) to tell more than 10,000 of them that they are on "the verge of two of the most important events in our 95-year history."
Those events would be the launch of the Focus model and the use of the famous Ford sign on all of its Canadian stores.
Ford hopes to sell Focus to as many as 50,000 Canadians next year, which would be an amazing feat for a car in these truck-crazy times. They further hope to make Focus an entry-level car that people want to buy rather than something they have to settle for, and they hope to sell it to much younger buyers, which are two more amazing feats.
As for that all-stores-under-one-flag-selling-fewer-models deal, that could really work out for the dealers as well as the company, and perhaps, maybe, possibly even for their customers.There are considerably lower costs associated with marketing, stocking and servicing fewer models, so the company and its dealers will certainly benefit. Perhaps, maybe, possibly some of these savings will work their way down to consumers.