Ford to Market SUV Excursion

* Re the Ford Excursion (March 11): This behemoth is another obscenity from American car makers. To justify its size, The Times reports that “Ford makes the case that the Excursion is more efficient because it burns less fuel hauling nine people and their luggage than would two mid-size cars.”

Baloney. How often does Ford or anyone else seriously believe that this is how the truck will normally be used? Check out how many SUV drivers haul more than one or two adults and a child or two and maybe a few bags of groceries.

Think of this trend the next time you are negotiating an average residential street made dangerously narrow by SUVs parked on one or both sides. Think of this trend the next time there’s a smog alert. And think of this trend the next time there’s an oil crunch.

But what’s the problem, when the wealthy can feel big and strong and when Ford can make amazing profits on each vehicle?

GERALD C. DAVISON

Los Angeles

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* So, Ford is coming out with the largest SUV ever, eh? The four-ton, 19-feet-long, 6 1/2-feet-wide, 7-feet-tall, 10-mile-to-the-gallon gas guzzler will emit three times the smog-producing pollutants as one car! Are we cutting our own throats here in smoggy Southern California? How can William Clay Ford Jr. make the statement that he is an “environmentalist”?

J. LYNN WILKERSON

Arcadia

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* This article was pure, manufactured hysteria. The projected 60,000 sales of Ford Excursions only amount to one-half of 1% of the 15 million auto market. Any “controversy” and “threat to the environment” are confined to the paranoid minds of the car haters.

The socialists in the environmental movement want to drive the rest of us into mass transit where we won’t be interrupting the traffic flow of their government-paid limos.

They not only want our cars, they want our freedoms. We Libertarians are eager for The Times to comprehend this concept and adjust its coverage accordingly.

DON HULL

Costa Mesa