Ford Flex Pictures 2010

The Wall Street Journal's article on the new Ford Flex starts off as all these things do: a personal anecdote from an enthusiastic buyer, some spin from the marketing folk and… oh dear. Not such a happy picture after all. "The Flex isn't a miser on fuel, getting 17 miles per gallon in the city and 24 mpg on the highway. According to Edmunds.com, the company has already put $1,315 in incentives on the Flex in July, a potentially worrisome development for a new vehicle. It is also unclear how the Flex will play with Ford's mainstream customers in the middle of the U.S. Many comments on car blogs have praised its design, but some have complained it resembles a hearse." And the hits keep happening. "Ford has said it expects to sell as many as 100,000 Flexes a year, but it will need to up the sales pace to achieve that. In June and July, the first two months it was on sale, 3,413 were sold. The Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicle can also seat seven; Ford sold 12,223 of them in June and July." The WSJ repeats Ford's claim that the "slow rollout has been by design" (why hurry?) and ends on the usual up note, relating CA IT maven Rueben Muinos' freshly-minted Flex appeal. "When he drove it home, he was surprised by how many people starred [sic]. "I thought I was talking on my cell phone illegally," he said, realizing only later that all eyes were on his Flex." We have no, well, little reason to believe Muinos was driving naked.

Ford Flex
Ford Flex
Ford Flex
Ford Flex
Ford Flex