Last Friday, Ford announced its plan to roll out a line of Ford Super Duty trucks boasting a drop-down tailgate escalator. In the press release, Ford claimed this innovation will bring financial stability to the struggling auto industry.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally says, "Everybody is afraid to buy new cars right now, and that's why we needed to jazz things up a bit. Our Market Research Department is convinced that a tailgate escalator is exactly what consumers have been waiting for."
Critics suggest that Ford is attempting to erase the memory of their trucks (still available on the lots of Ford dealers everywhere) equipped with a "man-step." The ill-conceived "man-step" is currently being maligned in Chevy commercials and snickered at by real men everywhere.
Real man Tommy Barton says, "I bought a new Ford without realizing they had added some kind of step to the tailgate. And now, I can't drive anywhere without kids pointing at me and laughing."
"I don't even use the step," Barton insists. But no one believes him.
Barton's wife, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says she is no longer attracted to her husband. "When we got married, I thought he was a man. But when he brought that truck home, well, now I'm not so sure."
Bill Burton says his "man-step" cost him his best friend. "Ol' Gus been riding in the back of my truck for years. But when I brought my new Ford home, he come a-running up to the tailgate with his tongue just a-wagging. But when I lowered the tailgate, he saw that there step...and he just sorta lowered his head and walked away. He done crawled up under that porch over yonder, and he ain't come out yet."
Initially Ford thought their "man-step" would help them corner the truck-buyers market.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally says, "We thought the step would be perfect for all the lazy men out there. Our R&D people talked to thousands of truck owners who said they never use their truckbeds because it's too much work to climb up there.'"
But apparently Ford underestimated the extent of such laziness.
One hillbilly whose name sounds like an odd combination of Bilberry and Tomburt—all five times we asked him— says, "It useta take one bigol' giant step to climb onto them tailgates, and now it takes two steps, and I ain't no stupid, so I knows that's at least, er, um...well I'll be darned if it ain't more work!"
But Ford has seen the light. Not only have they learned that real men (and lazy men) want an escalator and not a step, they've also determined that, by marketing exclusively to men, they had been unnecessarily restricting their demographic.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally says, "Trucks aren't just for men. And our escalator-tailgates are going to shatter that gender stereotype once and for all."
One middle-aged woman has already pre-ordered a Ford Super Duty Tailgate-Escalator Truck, and Ford expects that number to double or triple by the time trucks start coming off the line in 2011.
"We're not going to market this truck to men at all," says Hamilton Bradley, an unpaid intern and peon in Ford's marketing department who has had zero involvement in discussions about the tailgate-escalators but who has listened, in his words, "very attentively" to those he's passed in the hallways and bathrooms at Ford's home offices. "Instead, we're going to connect with the soccer moms and cougars out there."
Alicia Deaton, a self-proclaimed "soccer mom, cougar, and superfreak—the kind you don't bring home to motha," says, "I'd never even thought about climbing into the bed of a truck before."
"But with the escalator-tailgate," Deaton says, "Ford makes climbing into a truckbed feel like going to the mall."
Ford is determined to reduce its carbon footprint (mostly because not saying this would get the company crucified by every major media outlet), so they're proud to announce that all their tailgate escalators will be completely solar-powered. Even though initial testing suggests they will only work once a week—and even less in the winter.
To further appeal to the superfreaky, mall-loving soccer moms and cougars, Ford is toying with the idea of installing a tanning bed in the back of each of their tailgate-escalator trucks.
"But don't worry," says Ford CEO Alan Mulally, "in an effort to go green, we decided to only equip our trucks with solar-powered tanning beds."
They are still developing the design for theses solar-powered tanning beds, but they have agreed on an initial front-runner (pictured below).
—Thanks for Reading
