NYT: Ford to Cancel Excursion

NEW YORK, Reuters is reporting that the Ford Motor Co. has decided not to build a second generation of the Excursion sport utility vehicle, the New York Times reported Wednesday citing people close to Ford's future product program.

The Excursion, seven feet tall and able to seat a softball team, was oft criticized as the auto industry's most visible symbol of sport utility vehicle excess, the paper said, and is expected to be discontinued at the end of the 2004 model year.

Introduced in 1999 as a 2000 year model, the end of production will mean the Excursion lasted just one generation.

Sarah Tatchio, a spokeswoman for Ford, declined to confirm to the Times whether the company would drop the 19-foot vehicle, which gets 10 miles a gallon, is too long to fit in many garages and takes up two conventional city parking spaces.

She did confirm the car was part of Ford's 2003 product range.