AMERICAN PIE; Even sliced thinner, big SUVs still make for profitable pastry.(News)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

The world has gone crazy: Gasoline is $3 a gallon, the polar ice caps are melting and, heaven help us, Tyra Banks is still yapping away on national TV. And there's nothing we can do about any of it. In these crazy times, does it make sense to release a new Ford Expedition?

It does if you want to make money, which is what carmakers do. See, to Ford, it all comes down to pie, and slices of it.

"The pie is not as big as it used to be, but the pie is still big,'' said a Ford marketing executive, speaking about the large SUV market segment pie. "And while the pie is smaller, we still want to get a piece of it.''

Don't we all?

This is the large sport/utility pie. Depending on how you roll the dough and stuff the filling, this pie was 200,000 sales large a decade ago, and 1 million a few years ago-considerably more than four and 20 blackbirds. Yes, the pie has shrunk of late (and continues to shrink), but a shrinking pie is still a pie, and this pie tastes pretty good.

While the 2007 Expedition has a carryover 5.4-liter 300-hp V8, it also gets a new six-speed automatic transmission standard, a new multilink independent rear suspension to replace the previous A-arm IRS, a new exterior and a sticker that starts at less than $30,000.