The industry pioneer is scaling back its North American small car lineup in North America to just two vehicles, the Mustang and the unrevealed Focus Active crossover, in the "next few years." The rest of its range will be limited to SUVs, trucks and commercial vehicles.

Read the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ford-stop-se ... 00380.html

That's... interesting. I wonder what would make sense about offering less to a specific market?

mac, A lot less people will be walking around saying "Ford really makes SH!#%TTY Cars" !!

macgiver wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 26, 2018 11:41 am

mac, A lot less people will be walking around saying "Ford really makes SH!#%TTY Cars" !!

More people will start saying GM & FCA arem making s***ty cars now!

mac,that's a good one , SH!#%TTY car production is indeed a zero-sum game.

I'm not surprised by the Taurus and Fiesta going buh-bye as their sales have been sliding, but I'm mildly surprised they're going to stop the still big selling (con)Fusion.

Found this just now:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/ford-is ... ehind.html

Looks like GM is going to start killing off its car lineup soon.

mac , Carmakers new paradigm - build ' em in the third world , peddle 'em in the third world - where they will evolve into just that , a FRIGGIN BICYCLE

Ford says the Fusion basically barely sells anymore, and the Edge sells a crapton. They're just looking at sales numbers and eliminating what they view as duplicates.

The problem is: they're not duplicates.

As somebody who HATES everything about crossovers, this feels like an awful direction.
Even the best crossover does very little to meet my needs, and most of a crossover's strengths are completely irrelevant to me.

I HATE the ergonomics of crossovers.
I HATE the upright, "in command" seating position.
I HATE the high cg.
I HATE the bloated curb weights. Chevy's tiniest crossover weighs 3,000lb. My large V8 sedan weighs 3700lb. A 2018 Explorer weighs FIVE THOUSAND EFFING POUNDS. ALL of it floating up above the axle centerline, meaning the suspension is going to be doing all its work keeping that flab in check instead of providing a nice ride with great handling characteristics.
I HATE the styling.
I HATE that you can't see out of them, especially since they all have unnecessarily-tiny backlights with a bottom edge way above any non-crossovers that might be behind you.
I HATE how tall the things are.

And Ford makes it worse, because they're determined to cram the tiniest engines possible in as much car as possible (there's a turbo-4 version of the Explorer that weighs a "mere" 4500lb compared to the 5,000 for the AWD V6 models).

Crossovers are obviously great for a lot of people, but if the market moves to all crossovers and no sedans, I will be buying pickups henceforth. I want a long, low, wide sedan with low, comfortable seating, a low beltline, a long dash-to-axle ratio, a long wheelbase that's outside the cabin, and as low a center of gravity as possible. I'd like to stand next to my car and look down at the roof. I don't want to slide into a seat, I want to climb down into it. I want to sit as close to the floor as possible, with as deep and wide a footwell as can be managed. I want a big, open backlight that goes all the way down to the decklid, which should be level with the waistline and not above it (something Ford can't seem to get right even with sedans -- see Tempo and Fusion). I want my engine to sit down between the wheels, not way up above them. I want footwells, not a flat floor.

Sure, lots of people want to sit up high, feel in charge, step easily into their car, and fold their rear seats down for groceries and/or pets. And those desires are completely valid. But sedans are still 100% relevant and Ford are idiots for thinking that lower sales means one precludes the other. If the only two models on earth were the Edge and the Fusion, I'd buy a horse, but the Fusion would certainly meet more of my needs than the Edge.

FWIW, my mom has an Edge Sport (to become the Edge ST next year) with the ultra-hot 2.7 liter TT V6 making WAY more torque than my LS8. And sure, there's a lot of thrust. But the handling is meh, everything is numb, and all that thrust is working against 4400lb. That's nearly 1000lb more than my LS8. So, despite having 15% more torque and fancy-a** intelligent torque-vectored AWD to put it to the ground, it doesn't feel any quicker. And you certainly can't USE that power the same way you can in the LS8. You can't throttle-steer (though it does spend a lot of time in mostly-RWD-mode if the dash graphics are to be believed). You can't lean into a turn and let the 51:49 weight distribution shift the car through as you cross the apex. You also can't see ANYTHING out of ANY direction from the car. Ahead, you have a bulbous nose, behind you have a wall of blindness, and out the sides you have windows with sills that are way too high. It's not boring, but it's not fun or rewarding, either. Having to drive it isn't punishing, but even the 350 ft-lb aren't going to put a smile on my face. They just mean it's easier to get stuck behind other Utah drivers on freeway onramps.

mac, what content ! ,"THE Mini-ster" - you could write for Car & Driver - ?? Are they still around ? Lost the 70's , 80's , 2006-2016 .........

When gas goes back up to $5-7+ people are going to be crying for efficient sedans again.

this will pave the way for a new wave of electrics to be built in Mexico. Wait and see.

Can't blame a company for investing in what sells. We'll see how nimble they can be when the headwinds change and gas goes up inevitably.

I like sports cars, but I hate little FWD sedans. They're nothing more than a transportation appliance. Most are uncomfortable and I despise FWD handling.

I agree regarding FWD handling, but I'd rather have a small front-driver than a big one.

The problem with Crossovers is shared with those small FWD sedans, though, because they're basically just those same cars with a lift kit. They're mostly transverse powertrains, with mostly front-biased power delivery and very front-biased weight distribution.

In terms of good news, Ford says the next generation Explorer will be RWD again (but still unibody). This is good for two reasons:
1: It means the gorram Volvo P2 platform that was s*** from the start is finally dead 20 years too late.
2: For the inverse of the above stated platform-sharing, we may get some RWD Lincoln sedans again. Of course, they'll be fatty mcfattersons with tiny motors but hey, it's something?

mac, Are those Lincolns got the Mcfatterson struts all the way around ?

I think Desert Rat pretty much nailed it on his point that manufacturers build what people want to buy, and the majority of 'Murican new vehicle buyers have been recently trending away from sedans and more toward crossovers. But at the end of the day, we're talking just 4(?) models from one manufacturer that have been in sales decline in THIS country. A couple of thoughts:

1. I doubt this strategy will be permanent. GM discontinued the Camaro when its sales declined. Then they eventually saw mustang sales get stronger during its absence and no surprise, it came back.
2. The rest of the world is still selling sedans, so it should not take Ford long to realize they're going to miss the many tens of thousands of unit production they're walking away from.
3. I imagine with the Taurus and Fusion both going buh bye, that means the cars n coffee terror Mustang will become the next NASCRAP model Ford supplies to stock car racing. And the ol expression changes to "win on Sunday, buy and crash on Monday"

It honestly doesn't shock me at all to see them go this direction. I can't remember the last time I had any desire to visit a Ford dealership unless it was to look at a Mustang or a truck. The Focus ST was pretty good that I drove last year until I drove the Golf GTI later in the day, then I thought it was a massive POS.

If I were in the market for another sedan, I would definitely not be stopping at a Ford or GM dealership to even glance at what they have. Mazda and Toyota make excellent alternatives to the Fusion and the Taurus is pretty much useless these days. Of course I still prefer RWD bias sedans, but the Mazda 6 is a pretty damn good for what it is.

If anything Ford needs to kill of their current sedans and slowly bring back new models in the future if the public shows interest. They should have brought over the Falcon from Australia, rather than killing it off to have a fun sedan again. Ford lost my interest years ago though, so I really don't care in the end. My next purchase will likely be a truck and an F150 isn't even on my radar at all.

Kompresshun wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:04 am

If I were in the market for another sedan, I would definitely not be stopping at a Ford or GM dealership to even glance at what they have. Mazda and Toyota make excellent alternatives to the Fusion and the Taurus is pretty much useless these days.

Aside from the Toyota bit, I think this is exactly it. Toyota hasn't made an excellent alternative to anything other than being stabbed in the eye for a solid 20 years, and even then I'd have to think twice about it.

But really, I think what we're looking at here is the beginning of a cleanup effort. Bill Ford and Jim Hackett are cleaning up Alan Mullaly and Mark Fields' mess.
I don't think many would argue that Ford has a long, long history of over-extending the life of their models, especially for the US market (see: Ranger, Focus). But Mullaly and later Fields led the company through an era of spectacular stagnation--and worse--with some of the company's products actually getting markedly WORSE with successive generations under his guidance.

Look at the Fusion: Once Mazda-derived with a genuinely class-leading chassis and nice-but-inoffensive styling (especially the later facelifted models), it was redesigned on a platform built to save money by being cheap in as many places as possible, but with styling designed to sell via sex appeal. And, sure, the styling was very well received the first couple of years. But once people realized how mediocre the Fusion was at everything, the "Aston-inspired" styling lost its mystique.
Meanwhile, the MKZ, a pathetic badge-engineering attempt to keep Lincoln playing in the entry market (instead of playing with a real model like they once had in the LS), also traded in what few desirable traits it had for sex appeal. But that one failed, hard. The result was clearly SUPPOSED to be sleek and sultry, but really just looked like a blob with a moustache. But, once again, the styling would have been overshadowed by the car's (and powertrains') mediocrity no matter how good it was.
With no more V6 options and the transition from double-wishbones (which offer both better handling dynamics AND better ride quality) to struts, Ford basically neutered the Fusion. Then, years later, they introduced the Edge Sport's 2.7 liter in the Fusion Sport to cater to all the buyers they had already alienated.
What's hilarious to me is that Ford has the lack of vision to ruin their volume model in every way conceivable, then observe that sales are dropping. Yes, that's what happens when you make bad design decisions because you're awful at your one job: building cars. People stop buying your cars. Because they're bad.

Then look at the Focus:
The previous generation focus zombied on from 1998 until 2011, when it was way, way, way past its prime. They faked a "2nd generation" by swapping the interesting (but awful) original bodywork for what was basically the 1st gen Tempo styling rehashed for the 2000s. It was a thoroughly mediocre car.
So when the third gen came around, people were pretty excited, especially in the US where we missed out on the REAL second-gen, while hearing how great it was from the european car magazines.
And as with the new Fusion, the new Focus was well-received at first. It was sporty-looking, had a neat dual-clutch automated manual, a sporty chassis, and some hot models were likely in the pipeline (even for the US!).
Then people got over the newness of the Focus and started realizing that the interior was spectacularly awful, the ergonomics were abysmal (especially if you're more than 5 feet tall), the dual-clutch transmission was about as pleasant as a bat to the face, and those sporty dynamics, in typical Ford style, came at the expense of anything resembling decent ride quality.
I remember the first time I rented a Focus after reading all the positive early reviews. I was blown away at how not-remotely-great it was. Figured it had to be a weird crappy rental model I got or something. But no, it was just that "all-new-model after far too long of the old never-very-good model" placebo effect that everyone else was riding high on.

Meanwhile, the Taurus hasn't changed meaningfully since before the name was moronically resurrected in attempt to boost FiveHundred sales.
"Why doesn't this car sell?" asked Ford executives?
"Could it be that it has no interior space?"
"Could it be that it is severely overweight for its size?"
"Could it be that it is hideously ugly?"
"Could it be that the powertrain options are antique and not remotely competitive?"
"Could it be that everyone else, even GM with their aging W-body Impala, makes a vastly superior car for this segment?"
"No. Of course not. It's the name. We should bring back a name that has positive history with buyers. HOW ABOUT TAURUS?!"
"AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, SABLE. THAT IS A GOOD IDEA. WE SHOULD DO THAT. I AM NOT BEING SARCASTIC BECAUSE I AM THE HEAD OF MERCURY AND I WANT TO KEEP MY JOB AS HEAD OF A REDUNTANT AND IRRELEVANT BRAND THAT THINKS IT CAN SURVIVE SOLELY OFF ADDING CHROME AND MAKING ADS TARGETED AT MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN AS THOUGH THEY'RE A SEPARATE DEMOGRAPHIC FROM NORMAL PEOPLE."
So they did that. Those things.
And then they added turbos to their engines, and AWD.
And then they slapped that extra crap on the Taurus, along with an even higher beltline and a bunch of factory body damage and that "Aston-inspired grille" and brought back the SHO name because NASCAR fans and bud light and somehow everyone managed to overlook the fact that selling a 4 door sedan with 350hp that lacks legroom for adults in the back but still weighs 4300lb despite being built on a FWD platform is not exactly a recipe for success.

So yeah...I can see why Ford is ceasing sales of all their sedans.

They're all s***, and have been for several years.

But what Ford's either wrong about or trying to hide behind marketing speak is: People aren't skipping Ford sedans in favor of Ford crossovers because that's where the market is going.
People are skipping Ford sedans in favor of Ford crossovers because Ford crossovers are less s***.

mac ,brilliant synopsis from "The Minister" , key one liners = blob with a mustache - Nascar fans and bud lite - observation + logic +humor

I like the Fusion. For a moment you could get one with a turbo and a stick.

RIP.