#Sedans

In the mountainous country of Switzerland, there once existed a company called Monteverdi. And for a few decades, it built luxurious and sporty coupes and sedans for a very wealthy clientele. Today’s Rare Ride is the first sedan offering from that company. It’s a High Speed 375/4, from 1970.

Over the weekend, the future of Ford’s Mondeo midsize sedan (and wagon) looked as bleak as that of its U.S. Fusion twin. Britain’s Sunday Times, citing anonymous sources, claimed the automaker was poised to ditch the Mondeo, as well as a crop of other models, in an effort to shore up its sagging European operations.

Not so, claims Ford, though the murky timeline for the Fusion’s demise has us wondering if this reprieve for the Mondeo stands to be short-lived.

With Ford abandoning the sedan business for what it hopes are greener pastures, General Motors is going to stick with it. While it’s doubtful the automaker expects to pick up every customer the Blue Oval leaves behind, the sedan market still has millions of potential customers in it.

However, with the industry shifting ever more toward crossover vehicles, wouldn’t it be wiser to attempt to get out ahead of the craze? That’s what Ford is doing.

Plus, it’s not like there are any examples of Ford bucking the industry trend to persist with a vintage body style that resulted in any amount of success. Well, not unless you’re willing to count something like the Panther platform. But who remembers that footnote in automotive history? It’s not as if it has a deep-seated enthusiast community or reliably served a very specific subset of the market for any length of time.

After Ford’s decision to cull all passenger cars except the Mustang, Blue Oval brass felt confident that existing and upcoming Ford trucks, SUVs, and crossovers (or crossover-like vehicles) would be more than enough to keep current car owners in the family.

That’s probably wishful thinking. A new survey of Ford sedan owners shows that the allure of other brands — those that still sell sedans — is enough to lure plenty of them away from the Ford flock.

What do you get when you cross an enthusiast of a dead car brand, a bank account, and a late-model Panther?

This. Presenting the 2008 Edsel Citation:

German cars in North America are not immediately associated with base, no-option models or economical motoring. But that didn’t stop Adam Tonge from suggesting today’s trio. Which vehicle gets the Buy when you’re shopping at the bottom of the German luxury barrel in 2002?

Ladies and gentlemen, select your strippers.

Ford’s already brought the axe down on all but one of its car models, and General Motors looks ready to do the same. Other automakers, however, know that ditching sedans would mean abandoning key groups of customers.

For Toyota and Honda, models like the Camry and Civic resonate far more among some demographics, and leaving that segment risks losing those buyers to other brands. Not everyone wants a crossover. Among Asians, Hispanics, and African-Americans, four Japanese nameplates keep popping up at the top of the most-bought list, but one domestic model poses a growing threat.

Mazda is upgrading the infotainment system of the 2018 Mazda 6 with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Starting in September, the company will even allow owners who purchased one earlier in the year bring their vehicle into the dealership and have it upgraded, free of charge.

While that’s incredibly kind of them, there’s a catch. You have to own the Touring trim or above. If you bought a lesser Mazda 6, you’ll be out left out in the cold. But the automaker previously said it wouldn’t include the popular phone integration setup until 2019, making this a nice gesture. The 2019 CX-9 is supposed to be the first vehicle to see Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard equipment, though we’ve also heard Mazda talking about future dealer upgrades for all models equipped with Mazda Connect for a small fee in other parts of the world.

It was one of those make or break moments. A company teetering on the financial verge which threw a Hail Mary at the right time — and at the right target. The company in question was Chrysler, and the Hail Mary was the K-car platform.

Today we ask you: What was peak K?

As we were rustling up commentary in the last edition of Buy/Drive/Burn, conversation naturally turned to other front-drive sedans available that same year. The discussion sparked the idea for another General Motors same-body showdown, like we saw previously with the luxurious C-body.

Today we’re talking H-body 3800 fun from Oldsmobile, Buick, and Pontiac.

Last week, a Lexus ES300 caught my eye. Glimmering two-tone Multiple Taupe Metallic paint called out to me, and frameless windows over thin pillars promised stylish and understated luxury. The 300 lettering on the back guaranteed V6 power and pleasant NVH characteristics.

Think back to the very early days of the previous decade and memories of awful mainstream rock compete with visions of the first-generation Ford Focus sedan. It was everywhere, and quite a few people has quite a few problems with theirs. By the end of the decade, however, those issues were mainly in the rear-view, as Ford was busy preparing to heap dual-clutch transmission woes onto its customers.

Now, the Focus sedan’s officially dead as the Blue Oval embarks on a nearly car-free voyage to the future. Only the faux crossover “Active” version of the next-gen 2019 Focus stands to see any customers in North America, but it’s a privilege reserved only for citizens of the United States. Canucks need not apply.

Too bad, as the next-gen Focus sedan’s a looker. Its designers aren’t exactly thrilled that so many countries have taken a pass.

Volvo doesn’t want anyone to forget it’s revealing its first U.S.-built model on Wednesday, so it furnished us with a few more teasers to whet the collective appetite. It isn’t the car’s looks that have us excited, however — we already know the S60 will resembled a scaled-down S90 in both form and function.

What has our shorts in a pleasant knot is the fact that Volvo hasn’t replaced the model with another crossover. The new model replaces the second-generation sedan launched in 2010 (and sold in ever-decreasing numbers since 2012) and the automaker seems intent on offering everything customers have come to expect, and then some. There’s even a Polestar Engineered edition of the T8 model that offers 415 horsepower and 494 lb-ft of torque, plus enthusiast-oriented tweaks to the braking and suspension.

Frankly, it’s all shaping up rather nicely.

While Part I of the Fisker Karma story introduced the car and its tech, and Part II reviewed the interesting combination of features and design mandates which accompanied the advanced tech, Part III is the one you’ve really been waiting for.

It’s all flames, floods, and failures.

In Part I of our Fisker Karma Rare Rides trilogy, we learned of the technology and promise lying just beneath the swooping curves of the sedan’s seriously stylish body. Today we talk economy of fuel, space, and materials.