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In a surprise announcement today, Ford Motor Corporation (NYSE:F) announced that their ill-fated Aspire line of cars were inspired partly as a practical joke and partly as a poker bet.

"Look at the damned thing. It's almost obvious. We admit we let the joke go a little too far, but we think everybody got a great laugh out of it."

Many of the 573 people throughout the Midwest that actually purchased the automobile did not find Ford's announcement so amusing. Crystal Pollard of Possum Creek, Kentucky is one of 15 Aspire owners that are filing lawsuits.

The Aspire attempts to climb a steep incline

"I was robbed of my dignity, so I'm a suin' for de-feminization of caricature. And seeing as I'm the reader of the bunch, I'm plannin' on filin' this lawsuit of behalf of all of Chuktallonka County."

Ms. Pollard Insists that she was horribly embarrassed when she spilled hot coffee on the door of her Ford Aspire while backing out of the local Sonic's. The cardboard paneling apparently gave way when she was making a right turn onto state route 53.

"Her fat ass done fell out!" according to a small barefooted boy with a slingshot in his back pocket.

Onlookers apparently ridiculed Ms. Pollard as she blocked north and south bound traffic just east of Fayettesville. It was almost an hour before a tow truck with a winch arrived on the scene.

The truck was used to help drag the woman back into her car. She is suing for $10 million dollars, a piece of cardboard, a cup of coffee, two chickens and a free movie rental at Hastings.

Apparently similar events have occurred to other Aspire owners.

An entire family from the Texas panhandle plowed into North America's largest free standing cross after the tires actually melted while traveling on Interstate 40.

According to a Ford spokesman, "Ford explicitly states in the Owners manual not to go faster than 45 mph if the temperature is above 73 degrees Fahrenheit or the rubber/wax composite Firestone PX 1200 racing tires will lose their integrity."

After losing control, the car plowed through a flagpole and three pro-life billboards featuring aborted fetuses before running into the base of the cross.

The large cross, visible from as far away as Ada, Oklahoma, was designed to withstand 144 mph winds, but apparently not the impact of the Ford Aspire, the woman and her fourteen children. The children range in age from one to eleven and are all named Jeb.

No one was seriously injured in the crash, however, one of the children received a laceration on his forehead that was so severe that local doctors are concerned that the hair between her eyebrows may never grow back.

When paramedics first arrived on the scene they feared that the entire family had lost their thumbs during the accident, however this was later determined to be a pre-existing condition.

On a positive note, the accident dislodge several arterial blockages from fatty deposits in three of the eleven children.

Ford formally apologize for the incident, but denied that it bore any responsibility, because of a little known legal precedence called the "Jackass Claus". In the buggery/burglary trial of Ephraim Von Bachenpoker, it was established that a horseshoe manufacturer was not responsible for the 1762 hoofing of a Massachusetts man after he kidnapped and sodomized a mule.