The Titanic Turns

It's been announced that the Ford Motor Company will re-introduce the Taurus for 2008:

Ford Motor Co. today said it will bring back the Taurus and Sable nameplates, rechristening the Ford Five Hundred and Mercury Montego sedans for the 2008 model year.Ford also is renaming the Ford Freestyle crossover the Taurus X. The renamed vehicles will go on sale at the end of summer, Ford said.

For still-inexplicable reasons, Ford eliminated it's number-one seller in the domestic market to much consternation. One of those asking the most questions now runs the company:

One of those asking about the Taurus' last year was Alan Mulally, who questioned ending production when he took over as chief executive last fall.

The Taurus' replacement, the Ford Five Hundred was actually introduced several years back and was to fill the gap after the Taurus' departure. Only it's sales plummeted to under 100,000 units last year.

Credit to Mulally for seeing the iceberg. In an environment where the company is losing it's shirt (and it's pants and almost everything but the kitchen sink) the decision to eliminate it's top brand made no business sense whatsoever.

Where others might have held to the decision, Mulally is hoping (and rightly so IMHO) that a return to the successful nameplate with vehicle improvements will cost his firm less than establishing the replacement brand. In this instance, I think it's the right decision.

The only better decision of course was keeping the brand in production in the first place. Now Mullaly-much like the lookout in the Crow's Nest did--waits to see if the Titanic can turn fast enough.