IS GHOSN "BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE?"

Automotive News head honcho Keith Crain (who often sounds like some sort of second-generation car dealer more than a REAL automotive expert in his editorial musings) writes today that Nissan and Renault's Carlos Ghosn's flirtation with Kirk Kerkorian's "Renault Alliance" between GM, Renault and Nissan is misplaced.

Crain asserts that the proper partner for such an alliance is Ford Motor Company (tm).

Crain notes that FoMoCo's "Way Forward" cost cutting has depleted the ranks of executives (One could only hope FoMoCo canned the incompetent ones who approved junk like the Tempo, the 2.3 HSC engine, incompatible V8 engine families, "Racing" crate engines packed with weak cast and hypereutectic internal parts instead of the good heavy duty forged stuff, letting Panthers languish with piddly 239 h.p. engines and Clinton-era styling, letting Ranger and Lincoln LS rot, expensive CD3 and D3 platforms without Modular V8 compatability . . . . )

(Crain apparently hasn't read enough of the www.autoextremist.com rants about how Ghosn has depleted Nissan's American executive ranks by the move from the People's Republic of California down home to Nashville U.S.A. )

Crain points out FoMoCo's slip to NUMBER 3 in the U.S. and argues that:

"A matchup among Ford, Renault and Nissan makes more sense on just about any level. The corporate structure of Ford Motor would remain intact, and that's very important to William Clay Ford Jr. Ford Motor has some strong distribution networks in the United States and around the world that could be strengthened with such an affiliation.Ford Motor faces a long, dry spell until it has new products in the pipeline, and it's uncertain how those new products will do in stemming the slide in U.S. market share."

On the other hand, Crain doesn't opine much on what Ghosn's companies would bring to the table.

Ford's collaboration with Nissan on minivans didn't really blow the lid off the soccer mom niche.

Renault has generally been clueless as to what Americans want, so there's not much help the French can immediately offer on the product side.

Nissan has a load of new product in the pipeline instead of the showroom, which some analysts suggest has lead to Nissan's current sales woes (Nissan is about the only Japanese builder to suffer sales declines in the range of the Detroit 3, whereas the others are feeding like a pack of Orcas off of the gasoline-price-rattled U.S. market.)

Crain identifies Ghosn himself as the chief asset of interest to FoMoCo. Yet Crain ignores Ghosn's claim that he has no interest in running THREE companies. Besides William Clay Ford, Jr. reportedly once offered Ghosn a corner office in the Glass House . . . .

And then there's that Ford family control issue that's a bitter poison pill to about any hook-up . . .

Crain's editorial is more likely just another backhanded defense of GM against Kerkorian by another of Detroit's old guard.

Perhaps the appropriate time for such speculations is if and when GM, Renault and Nissan agree NOT to ally.