Interesting story. So the Sebring is selling strongly? I wonder what is causing what models are causing it to sell so strongly. I bet the Limited model sales is what is helping the Sebring sell better than the previous model. The previous Sebring was overall a good looking car, its weaknesses were it did not have a competitive powertrain and the interior was too similar to the Stratus's. Although the 3.5L may not be as powerful as much of its competition, the new 6-speed is helping to keep it competitive and helps to keep the gap smaller.

I'm somewhat surprised to hear the Taurus is failing worse than the Five Hundred. The new Taurus is a pretty nice car, the main problem is once again the styling. It doesn't exactly cause a person's heart to race, let alone encourage you to keep on eyes on it. The other problem is although the power is certainly an improvement from the previous model and the fuel economy is quite impressive for its class, it still can't hold a candle to the LX cars let alone the W-body cars in the category of performance.

It isn't surprising that Mercury is having trouble, not only is the difference between Mercury and Ford becoming less and less apparent, but the appearance of the different Mercury models is becoming difficult to tell them appart. Ford needs to change their strategy with Mercury before they decide to drop them. They need to make them a direct competitor with Toyota and Honda in luxury and interior offerings while offering the performance of Nissan, while Ford needs to compete with just the performance end of the market. Ford should focus more on being a domestic, performance competitor. Lincoln needs to try to catch back up with Cadillac's performance.

Buick needs to decide that if they are going to position themselves as being Lexus's domestic equal, they need to put in the effort to meet that benchmark. First of all, they need to abandon the 96-07 Taurus styling on the LaCrosse and start featuring some of the best technology GM has to offer in all of their models without threatening Cadillac's sales. The 240hp version of the "High Feature" engine combined with their old 4-speed isn't the best they have to offer. To help distinguish themselves they should keep as many models FWD as possible as long as the torque-steer isn't too excessive and should consider looking into AWD.

The new Malibu looks like it will be quite competitive. It appears that Honda is making a mistake with the new Accord. They are not planning on offering a 6-speed automatic which has become the norm for new models. This could cost them.