de autos cars

Okay, that headline is either an audition for a gig at Daily Variety or a desperate cry for help.

But that's not important now.

The Ford Flex was supposed to be The Answer. The way forward from minivans. In fact, Ford stopped making its Freestar minivan and the Taurus X crossover in the belief that the Flex would deliver those (few) customers and a bunch more.

Hasn't happened.

Days go by...sometimes weeks...before I see a Flex on the streets of the car-crazy metropolis of four million souls in which I live and drive, a place where you'd die of internal bleeding if there were a "punch dub" game for minivans, Tahoes and even Suburbans.

Only 12,598 Flexes left dealerships for driveways and garages in the first four months of this year...which puts it on track to do less than 40,000 units sold in 2010. Not the stuff of which hits are made.

Still, Ford says it's happy. Why? They told the Detroit Free Press.