US Market
In the United States, Ford Futura may be considered an automobile model name that was never quite born. Scheduled to denote a new sedan entry for the North American market in 2005 (the 2006 model year), the car it was destined for was renamed Ford Fusion while still under development, due to a trademark dispute. Futura proved to be owned by the Pep Boys auto parts chain, due to a tire line marketed by them under that brand. Ford's claim failed because the company had not used the name for more than three years.
The company did use the name sporadically for several decades. In the 1950s, the Lincoln Futura show car provided the basis for the Batmobile later used in the Batman television series. In the early 1960s, the Ford Falcon had a specialty coupe submodel called Futura, and the same was true of the Ford Fairmont in the late 1970s.
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Famous quotes containing the word market:
“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)