Thursday, September 6, 2007

Bring the Ford Mondeo to America Please!


Another car blog by Areg. BLAHHH! But seriously, even if you're not into cars, you can appreciate this one. GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler have been making big improvements lately in the sedans that they've been selling in the U.S. market. Look back just 5 years ago and you wouldn't have even a handful of cool fun to drive cars available today ranging from the Dodge Charger and Saturn Aura, to the restyled Cadillac CTS.
But the domestics (if you can still call them that) are yet to fully embrace the perfectly good and progressive sedans they have in their European and Asia-Pacific Markets and bring them here. I've said it before and I'll say it again - certain Fords, Opels (GM) / Vauxhall (GM) / Holden (GM) being built and sold abroad are much more desirable cars than what's being sold here in the same class and price segment. The Saturn Aura was a good step in the right direction, bringing the Opel platform over from Europe in the form of a Saturn. But now it's time for Ford to step up and start importing the Mondeo into the United States so that shoppers will have something other than the Ford 500 and redesigned Tauruses to choose from. Don't get me wrong , the 500 and Taurus are solid safe cars that boast class leading space and amenities. But they won't bring younger buyers to the brand and they're not particularly fun to drive or memorable. The redesigned Mondeo on the other hand is a headturner and will bring new buyers to the brand. More importantly, it will get Americans excited about a Ford SEDAN, something that hasn't happened in a long time despite what Ford may think internally. The Mondeo looks original, stays true to Ford's new styling theme, and would outsell the 500 and Taurus in a second. Give it a strong V6, make a hybrid model optional, and let people choose from a CVT or traditional manual transmission and I guarantee the car will sell.
You don't even need to follow the auto industry to realize that staking your entire reputation on sport utilities and and pickup trucks is a shortsighted strategy that will not be sustainable in the near future. So instead of allocating your resources differently and designing new sedans from scratch, just bring over what's already in Europe and watch your sedan sales skyrocket. Enough writing, time for me to call Dearborn:)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

you're quite the activist these days. cars and politics. interesting. not quite sure what the iraq war has to do with cars but i'll continue to read :)

mountaineerfootball said...

I know this is a bit old, but I couldn't agree with you more. I look at Ford/GM Europe's cars, then I look at their American counterparts and shake my head.

What are they thinking? Have you seen the Focus they get in Europe? Way better than our frumpy sedan version with Microsoft Sync! Worst part is, the Focus appealed to the "racer" crowd...those who liked to "hop up" their cars. I can't imagine how that treatment would look on the current US model. But, the European model would be PERFECT for that.

Yep. American carmakers don't get it.