Ford Bringing Raft Of Euro Products Stateside
While FoMoCo puts lipstick on Volvo in hopes of a quick sale, it's quietly bringing several Ford Europe models to the U.S. in the hopes of reinvigorating small car and crossover sales. The Ford Fiesta imminent arrival is no secret, but Automotive News [sub] is reporting that Ford's next U.S. Focus will be European engineered on the global C1 platform. Ford's C-Max and Kuga– a pair of C1-based crossovers reflecting minivan and SUV influences (respectively) in the segment– will join their Euro brethren on this side of the pond. AN Europe [sub] spoke with Ford America President Mark Fields, who confirmed the importation schedule. "We really have to have the right cadence (and) marry up the cadence of freshenings between Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America," says Fields. "Leveraging scale by using common suppliers, you can't have one part of the world freshening a vehicle and assuming a year later another part of the world will do that." The range of FoMoCo's "Kinetic Design" kids heralds the demise of the current, lamentable Ameri-Focus and aged Escape. And not a moment too soon. But is it soon enough?
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I'm not an oracle of Mazda knowledge, but the 2010 Fusion is not using the same engine or transmission as the 2009 Mazda6 if I've read the tea leaves correctly. That said, we don't eve know that those numbers are final. They were part of a survey that might have estimated numbers as opposed to real numbers (they look suspiciously like 2008's EPA stats). I'd wait until Mazda or the EPA actually releases figures, then we can complain about the 6's gas mielage. However, the 2010 Fusion launching in January of 2009 is expected to be somewhere around 21-22/31-32.
The decision to do this was so obvious its hard to congratulate Ford for it, however I congratulate Ford for it. I completely underestimated Mullaly. As simple as it sounds to make a decision like, 'hey lets not build 4 different platforms of the same size and performance that share no parts', it is quite a feat to make that happen in Ford's (former?)byzantine bureaucracy. It really makes me wonder what the hell they're doing over at GM and Chrysler...
I'm disappointed that TTAC's scribes swallow this Ford BS like every other automtoive journalist out thre. No one, I repeat no one, makes the same car for Europe and the US. Not BMW, not Mercedes, not Audi, and certainly not FOrd. But Ford keeps trying, and failing. The first Focus was supposed to be a European car, but by the time it met the US standards and the US tastes, it shared fewer than 10% of it's parts with the Euro version. Remember the Contour (nee Mondeao)? The Five Hundred (nee Volvo)? The 2 seater Capri (nee Mazda)? The Mercury Tracer (nee Mazda)? The Probe (nee Mazda)? And so on. If nothing else, the seats will have to be completely different, and that's a big chunk of the car. I once studied the teardown of 3 Toyota Corollas, a US version, the Euro version, and the home market version. There were, literally, no common parts. Eventhe emblemns were colored differently. The Corolla remains a success not because of any common engineering, but because Toyota makes the best car they can for each market. I was at the BMW plant in Munich last summer, where they explained (in a condesending manner to an inept American who didn't speak German) how they make each 3 series differnetly for each market. The floor pans are differnet for a US model,, and the differneces go from there. Again, BMW is successful because every BMW is targeted to be the best for the market they are in. BMW does use the same emblem on all 3 series. "Common platforms" is bullshit from top people who knownothing about actually making cars, and are trying to hide that fact from the public and from the stockholders. Bob
C'mon lk8900 - no personal attacks. I think Katie under estimates how "bad" the American Focus is compared to what they get in Europe. We don't get the wagon anymore. We don't get the hatchback version anymore. The Euro-Focus is better looking. So we get the less useful sedan that is uglier to boot. No thanks. Focus used to be on my short list but not without a hatchback.