Ford: Ending Production on Most Sedans

[TomB]

I think small cars are somewhat looked down upon in the USA? Or perhaps they just used to be.

I've owned at least three Fiestas and they've all been ace (Although the first one was an ancient MK I that, I realise now, was mostly made of tin.) There are constant rumours of Ford making an RS Fiesta. If they ever do I will make very unwise financial decisions in order to be able to own one.

I don't know that "small" cars are looked down on so much as "economy cars" are looked down on. Small cars can do well if they don't look and feel cheap or low quality.

 

[Trebuchet]

True. The current Honda Civic is significantly larger than my 1976 Accord. That car replaced a Civic that weighed less than 1500 pounds.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

True. The current Honda Civic is significantly larger than my 1976 Accord. That car replaced a Civic that weighed less than 1500 pounds.

For Honda and Toyota, seems their main line of cars have all jumped up a rung as far as size and luxury. Toyota and Honda both now have cars that are smaller and cheaper than the Civic and Corolla, which used to be the most economical options. The Corolla/Civic are pretty much filling the roles of the old Camry/Accord, and the new Camry/Accord are large sedans with pretty nice interiors. Not quite luxury cars, but not too far off with a price to match.

 

[Delvo]

Ford's range of what it calls SUVs and crossovers goes down to pretty small. Take the EcoSport, which is pretty small. And they are keeping a "crossover version" of the Focus, which probably means one of the hatchback versions which will fill the next size class down.

The way I interpret this, they believe that their smaller to mid-size SUVs cover the same market as the larger to mid-size sedans. They are the same size and get similar mileage. It's not the size/class/price market they appear to be leaving, just the sedan as a form factor.

That's exactly what I was about to say. A lot of people might not have noticed the sudden prevalence of the "crossover" category in the last few years, or might not have thought about what it means because they look SUV-ish and it's a bit awkward to call something that looks like an SUV a "crossover" when SUVs themselves were originally a crossover between cars and trucks (essentially trucks with the bed enclosed and seats installed in it; often called "trucks" anyway in cases when "SUV" seems linguistically awkward).

What those new "crossovers" are really crossovers between is cars and SUVs. They're smaller than the models that are still called SUVs, and built on car frames instead of truck frames, but they're shaped more like SUVs to yield more usable space inside. They're essentially what would have been called hatchback cars until recently.

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It was only about 6 years ago that Ford got out of the compact pickup truck game in the USA. Now they're bringing it back for the 2019 model year (which begins late summer 2018). These kinds of decisions can be reversed. As long as they're still selling the smaller cars elsewhere, they don't even need to design something new to bring it back here later. The new American Ranger, for example, is the same truck they've been selling in Australia and South America while they weren't in the USA. For that matter, they'll still sell cars here under the name "Lincoln", so all it would take to come back would be putting a more Ford-like price & probably the Ford logo on some of those.