Not the first car company to embrace social media, but perhaps the most extreme, Ford has decided to begin promotion of its 2011 Fiesta (set to release in 2010) in a pretty ballsy way. In an attempt to garner favor with the Generation Y crowd they are going to give complete control over the car’s advertising to a group of 100 young people. According to the Wall Street Journal, it works like this: from thousands of video submissions, they have chosen 100 participants based on their writing and production skills, as well as the scale of their social graph online, each of whom they will provide a free 2011 Fiesta, auto insurance, and gas for 6 months. In exchange, the participants will be required to blog and submit videos cataloging their experience. The ballsy part: no censorship. Ford will have no control over what people post and share online.

Bottom line: it really is a Hail Mary. If everything goes right… If Ford can stave off bankruptcy for the next year, and if their design is appealing and the car is actually quality… and if the uncensored posts are overwhelmingly positive while coming across honest and real… then this might just be the play to give Ford a much needed win. Then again, that’s a lot of things that have to go right. Recent history is not on their side. But for the sake of the the American car industry, I wish them luck and hope that they can find a way to be relevant again. If they succeed, I would be happy to buy American, even Ford. But if they don’t produce a superior product, then I’ll continue to buy elsewhere.