Crossover vehicles are designed to please car buyers who aren’t interested in a normal sedan but still aren’t ready to drive a normal SUV. Crossovers are a popular product in the auto industry, but some of the Ford Motor Company’s older and bigger vehicles hold up well when compared to the new products.

This story in the Dallas News doesn’t look too kindly on the new crossovers. Instead, the writer describes them as a new “fad” that is pushing out the better, more established Ford cars on the market. He uses the Ford Explorer, an SUV that has experienced dwindling sales in recent years, as the catalyst for comparing the crossover models to the fuller-sized SUV models.

According to the test driver, the Explorer is, at the very least, competitive with the newer and sleeker Ford Edge (or trucklet, as he calls it). So why do people appreciate the Ford Edge and other crossovers more than the Explorer?

Maybe it’s the gas mileage.

Nope. When comparing the gas mileages of the two vehicles, there is only a difference of about two miles in the city. That seems minimal for making a car-buying decision.

It must be the price.

Wrong again. The Eddie Bauer four-wheel drive that the test driver tested was roughly $4,000 less than that of the Ford Edge. When all was said and done, the writer appreciated and enjoyed the Ford Explorer, a model that has been around for several years. The only explanation for its decreasing popularity and the increasing popularity of the Edge is the uniqueness of something new.

For me, I prefer an old friend to a new one any day. But that’s just me. If you’ve driven a crossover lately, do you have reasons for preferring it over a full-sized SUV? Feel free to comment and let us know.

Everybody keeps talking about how bad the United States economy is right now. Some say we’re in a recession. Others point to the housing crisis as a sign of something big to come. And the rising gas prices sure aren’t helping.

But despite these problems, two Ford vehicles, the Edge and the Focus, have shown a huge increase in sales during the month of March. In fact, Ford sold more Focus models last month than it did in any other month since August 2005! Compared with the same periods from a year ago, Focus sales have increased 35 percent in the entire first quarter and 36 percent in March. These figures have helped the automaker regain is share in the competitive small-car market.

For the Ford Edge, sales figures were up 35 percent last month as compared to March 2007. But more impressively, sales were up more than 50 percent in the first quarter compared to last year’s first quarter. The California market accounted for 10 percent of those sales in 2008, but retail sales along both coasts doubled when compared to the first quarter of 2007.

According to Jim Farley, Ford group vice president, the growing sales reflect the fact that “customers who haven’t traditionally even considered our products are starting to warm up to Ford and is just an indication of more to come.”

If this trend continues, Ford just might fight its way back to the top position in the automotive industry. With all of the work the company has been doing, no other automaker deserves it more than Ford.