Does Ford not Like U.S.?

Does Ford not Like U.S.?

Now seriously, is it just me or does Ford not like its home country compared to the rest of the world? For years the cars Ford has sold in the United States have paled in comparison to the rest of the competition, including Mazda which Ford owns! This was okay for awhile because buying a Ford over the competition meant saving thousands of dollars, and buying a Ford never gave off a “I can’t afford better” vibe. The problem with their methodology in modern times though lies with the Koreans. Hyundai also sells cheap cars, but they now make good cars. So if you’re in the market for the best, Honda and Toyota offer cars made with superior quality, and if you’re looking for cheap and cheerful, Hyundai will happily sell you a car with a long warranty. Also, if you like buying American, Chevy and Dodge sell very similar cars, in spec and price, to what Ford puts out. As a result Ford has some major financial troubles due to their losses in the United States. So what about the rest of the world?

Ford isn’t doing too badly in the rest of the world. Does that mean the rest of the world likes the cheap cars Ford makes? No, they like the good cars Ford makes. For example the Ford Mondeo has been and still is one of the best selling cars in Britain. Wait, the Ford what? Ford doesn’t sell a “Mondeo” in the U.S.! That’s very true, and we don’t sell the Taurus to the rest of the world. From the foreign reviews I’ve read, the Modeo is a spectacular mid-size sedan and easily beats the Camry dynamically, and gives the Accord and the 6 a good fright. To add to this, the Mondeo is properly put together and lacks the massive panel gaps and nasty plastics that the Taurus suffers from.

Recently the replacement mid-size for Ford has been the Ford Fusion, which is really a Mazda 6 with poorer build quality and a disguise. Ford is trying to make a move in the right direction by up scaling their cars a bit to not look like a joke next to the competition, but why didn’t we get the Mondeo? Why did a company with financial troubles spend money developing a new car (albeit, developing around an existing design) instead of bringing over a car that they already know is good? It would have been explainable if the Fusion was created to tie us over until the next generation Mondeo (as seen in Casino Royal, as 007’s hire car) gets put into production, but once again the Mondeo is exclusive to the rest of the world. I have to stress the rest of the world part because the photo’s I took and included with this article are from Taiwan! Taiwan is an insignificant car market compared to the United States and yet they’re getting the good stuff.

The Focus is the only taste we have gotten of how good Fords can be when they’re designed in Europe (well the GT too, but not many people are capable of getting one). It was a good move for Ford to bring over the Focus instead of giving us another Escort, but this moment of intelligence was as short lived as a fruit fly. The rest of the world has gotten an all new Focus which shares its architecture with the Mazda 3 and Volvo S40. It’s a great little car which actually outperforms the Mazda 3 and it looks fantastic as well; in fact, when I was reading up on it a couple of years ago my friends even caught me saying, “When that comes out in the U.S., I think I might get one.” Unfortunately it never did, and instead of the new Euro-Focus, we got the old Focus with some botox shoved up its tailpipe. Then, Ford announced that there would be a new Focus for 2008, but that turned out to be a bigger let down than before. The 2008 Focus is once again a face lifted old Focus but with “suspension tweaks.” What’s worse is the fact that the new Focus no longer comes in hatchback form and is now uglier than a Ssangyong Rodius (look that car up, you’ll get a good laugh). I’m really surprised that no one on the design team said anything about how the car’s wheel arches make 17 inch wheels look like milk bottle tops. All in all, the United States gets a half assed remake of a ten year old car, while the rest of the world drives something proper.

To make things even worse, cars like the Ford Escape which are offered elsewhere in the world are actually better everywhere outside of America. My father actually owns an Escape in Taiwan, and he says that the rental Escape he drove state-side just felt like a different car altogether. I haven’t driven either Escapes so I cannot comment on that myself, but I have seen them in person, in detail. The build quality of the Taiwanese Escape was just plain better. Everything looked and felt more solid. This was especially true of the interior. American Escapes have the signature cheap plastics and panel gaps that American cars generally have, but the Taiwanese Escape had an attractive well put together interior with quality materials. Why don’t we have that here?

I’m sure some marketing guy or gal from Ford will be able to throw numbers and research data at me defending Ford’s decision to shaft America, but I wouldn’t care, largely because Ford is losing money in America. I just don’t understand why Ford doesn’t bring over its fantastic foreign car models and up its quality in order to properly challenge the competition. Sure, this may bring their car prices up a bit, but the reason why people are buying the relatively more expensive Hondas and Toyotas is because they’re just better. What Ford is doing is like a parent giving their child a cassette walkman for Christmas, and giving the neighbor’s kid the new iPod touch. The only way this would make sense is if that parent just didn’t like his/her own kid.