Ford has announced that the current Euro-spec Focus arrive stateside in 2010 as a 2011 model. What's more, it'll be an American-made product, And for once, we don't mean Mexico. Automotive News [AN, sub] says the current Focus plant in Wayne, MI will likely build the new-to-us small car. If all goes according to plan (i.e. the SUV market never recovers and the United Auto Workers play ball), Ford's Louisville KY factory may also switch over to the new Focus (from Escape/Mariner production). All in, we're looking at an annual production capacity of 280k units. AN's confirmed sedan and five-door versions of the new Focus, with rumors circulating of possible C-Max MPV. With this machine, Ford returns to a "world car" strategy for its C1 platform; the 2010 US-spec model will be the same car sold in Europe, South America and Asia. This global product alignment will bring new features to the stateside Focus, like direct-injection engines and a six-speed gearbox. We'd like to think that a hot ST or RS version might also be sold stateside, but then we also daydream about Paganis.
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Duh! What a concept!
Better late than never.
Let’s hope anyway …
We’d like to think that a hot ST or RS version might be sold here as well
I think I would much rather see the 5-door (or 3-door, please) model sold with a good hybrid power plant.
All it took was $4 per gallon.
Should’ve raised gas prices years ago…
:)
Clarification: The 2011 will be C1-2. Basically, the third-gen Focus. It will be rolled out in Europe, Asia and NA all at the same time. Development on the updated platform actually started from specifications in the U.S. so it could be manufactured and sold here without drastic modifications from other regions. Beacuse North American joined the Fiesta program late, modifications had to be made to the front and rear to support U.S. crash standards – resulting in most of our nearly 18 month delay from its introduction in the EU to US (the rest was manufacturing location decisions and investments).
Happy dance!
Now for the next challenge: premium features in a small car – will the US handle pay for it? There’s a QOTD for ya.
as long as they don’t take the US focus platform and make that the ‘world’ platform… ;)
Many small cars in the US have premium features. Many of those are under $20k too. My Mazda has several “luxuries” not found in it’s competition until you get over the $25k price range.
Wow that looks a lot like a Volvo, doesn’t look like they change much from the S40.
Good to see this finally happening, a generation late but better then not.
The US makers have taught us for many years that small equals cheap, and when you are ready (read:can afford) a real car, it’s going to be big, almost Continental (sorry).
The US makers, who have weaned us on cheap small cars, now have to figure out how to sell the small car for the big bucks. Sadly, we are more into “super sizing” than quality in small doses.
This is a valuable first step.
Well, it only took SEVEN years to build a C-1 platform car in North America. Ford US is doing the right thing to bring in Europeans to design its cars. Do you think any design studio in Europe would have come up with the Cobalt or Aveo?
This is excellent. They need to get it here along with the Fiesta as soon as possible though. 2011 is ok I guess, but these are the two products that could enable Ford to turn the corner. The sooner the better. I would consider a Focus, but the current one is so terribly ugly, and you can’t get it with a hatch anymore.
Frankly, having driven the first gen in Europe and here, and having driven all the followup permutations, I would still prefer the smaller first gen. The current one is way bigger and heavier than it should be. Still, it’s better than nothing.
Bring over the Ka while you’re at it.
FWIW, I read elsewhere that the Louisville, KY plant builds the Explorer, not the Escape.
Just put a big whole honkin’ navigation screen in it and it’ll sell like hot cakes. Used to be that size = upscale. Now it’s gizmos and other luxury items people dont really need. Put a small under-performing (or fuel efficient as they’re called nowadays) engine in a car and load it up with gadgets. Recipe for success.
They’re going to build 280K of them. What’s the max upside profit if sold at MSRP? Is $1K profit for one too high/low or what? In the best case for these, how many trucks/SUVs would that displace in terms of profit? Is there any resonable hope for Ford.
By the time these Cars get to North America, Gasoline will be a lot more than $4.00 a gallon, just watch it climb!!and Ford may be a goner by then too.
Looks like Ford is moving in the right direction. The question is, can they get there in time?
Now GM, that there is another story. Other than the Volt long-shot they give no evidence of fixing their basic problems.
The market for premium featured small cars is getting stronger by the day. I saw a long time friend today who recently let go of her Audi after the lease was up. The replacement? A fully loaded manual transmission equipped Mazda 3. A great car and a great value. She saved herself a fortune and a lot of heartache by staying away from the Audi dealer this time … and didn’t bother with a lease either. Really great looking metallic black paint job on that “3” as well.
Bravo!
“Clarification: The 2011 will be C1-2. Basically, the third-gen Focus. It will be rolled out in Europe, Asia and NA all at the same time. Development on the updated platform actually started from specifications in the U.S. so it could be manufactured and sold here without drastic modifications from other regions.”
Hallelujah! My only question is, can it be profitable if built in the US? I’m suprised they wouldn’t produce it in Mexico, although with the volume they can achieve from producing 1 focus globally, I can imagine there actually is profit potential.
# James2 :
FWIW, I read elsewhere that the Louisville, KY plant builds the Explorer, not the Escape.
That’s correct. Escape, Mariner and Tribute are made in Kansas City. The Louisville plant assembles the Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer.
If they bring the Mondeo, they might actually make this thing work.
A modern Focus built in the US will be most profitable if Ford figures out that production costs are 40% lower in the US than in Europe, and starts exporting FROM the US.
Gee, another crackerbox car. Like those won’t be sold at every dealer in town.
I wouldn’t get too excited. If you take the badges off of 75% of the vehicles sold in 2011, they will all be pretty much interchangable.
Okay a good first step.
Now when do we get the Fiesta and the Mondeo?
I had a Mondeo, last gen. The ford contour, mercury mystique were credible from the first year, but then the ford bean counters decontented the car until it expired. The duratech six was ripping, with the five speed. Since most of these were ordered by ford and l’m dealers, there were few five speeds.
I got one of the few, and it ran really well for about 1oo k. The same guys who make the Taurus feel like crap had gotten into the interior of the Mystique, so you had the same conflict of high content as far as gadgets go with cost is the object for construction of each gadget.
With SVT suspension, the Mystique was a good handler and fun to drive. Had ford spent another twenty dollars on the interior, it would have felt plush, like the euro versions we didn’t get.
It died in dealers, as it competed with the Taurus, which was plain bigger in the American vernacular, and was a better discount by the dealers.
A sales disaster, Ford recovered by upgrading the interior, fitting four wheel drive, and giving it a jumping cat emblem. I greatly enjoyed going to the car show and finding the substantial number of identical parts where “joesixpack” does not look.
Look at the A3 to see how this is done well….plebian platform, BMW execution.
The Euro Focus is a great car. I spent the last 5 weeks in two rental Foci, (2.0 convertible and 1.6 5-door), driving 10,000 km through Europe. Good fun, good seats and practical.
The Ford dealers seem to move a lot of them these days, there are a lot of new EcoMotion Foci on the road. (the 55 mpg version)
However, who wants a sedan? I have never, ever seen the Focus sedan on the road in Europe. Bring the wagon over instead. Best looking Focus.
Once upon a time when Ford was still in the class 8 tractor business Louisville made semi-tractors.
Ironically they sold out to Freightliner (Mercedes)in 1996 as they figured that Louisville could be put to more profitable use making light duty land yachts.
Ford’s past performance suggests that if it’s built in North America, it will be “Euro” in name only.
I share nudave’s concern that they’ll bring the Euro-Focus here in name only. Sometimes things get lost in translation and the end result is a much watered-down version of the original. Witness the Escort of the 80’s…while growing up in Germany I completely dug the hotrod versions of the Euro Escort, including the ragtop. What did we have here? A lame econobox that only marginally came into it’s own when they made the GT version later in life. Still, if the Focus does make it over here as is, there is hope that when I go to sell the Fusion I’ll be able to consider a nice Mondeo as an option!
I am sure we will get “revised” seats and suspension for the so-called tastes of the US market (read: wide flat seats and soft mushy or hard jumpy suspension).
Mondeo! Mondeo! Mondeo!
Two questions for TTAC’s brightest and best….
1. I see a lot of comments clamoring for Ford to bring the Mondeo over to the USA. I have driven Mondeos in the UK and in my opinion they are very fine vehicles. However, I also recall that the older Mondeos (which were also reckoned to be quite competitive vehicles in the UK at the time) were introduced in the USA as the “Contour” and never really took off? Why was this? Is it that the typical US buyer just doesn’t want the same things in a car that the typical British/continental family car buyer does? Or is it that the process of federalizing the car and massaging it a little to make it more US-friendly was just poorly executed?
2. (this is a more general question) When I lived in the UK I had a couple of late nineties Mondeos as company cars. One had a 1.8 motor and one had the 2.0 liter motor. I found the performance of these cars perfectly adequate at the time. They seemed more than fast enough for the cut and thrust of British motorways and fast back roads and also handled well. The 1.8 was only 115 BHP I think, and the 2.0 only 140 maybe? When I see the current horse-power wars going on relating to family cars, with people giving negative reviews to anything that doesn’t have at least 200 bhp I cannot quite understand why 140BHP could motivate a late nineties Mondeo quite adequately but now that output would be sneered at in a compact car? Were all cars simply lighter 10 years ago or are we all being sucked into some psychological arms race where our expectations are being pumped up to whole new levels?
I’d be interested to hear what others think?
The answer to number 1 is both.
The Mondeo, however, is designed slightly differently and could be carried to the U.S. as is – except it would likely run around $25k for a base model.
What Ford is doing is what they failed to do in the 90s. With the Contour (and first Focus), Ford of Europe developed the car and then the U.S. modified it. Now, U.S. engineers put in certain specifications around size, interior room, layout and, frankly, cost that FoE can take and turn into a car that can be produced and sold worldwide not just “worldwide.”
The benefit is, especially with the Focus, that Ford will get probably 250-300k additional units out of the same development effort. It makes it less costly per vehicle to develop, tool up and supply. That allows better content and opens up to high labor cost bases producing a higher content car at the same price as competitors.
This is not like Ford’s efforts in the 90s. I think that is the most important thing to realize. This is not the Contour or Focus Mk1 in any respect.
That said, we won’t be getting the “Mondeo.” The Fusion name will live on when the platforms are mated in, most likely, early 2012.
Tiger260 – I have felt the same things since I was stationed in Italy ’91-’94. Apparently though the Americans who get it buy imports already and those Ford customers are not going to give much thought to anything not big and bad and fast and loud. At least around here. Small cars remain starter cars for teen girls around here that the “grownups” won’t give much consideration to until gas gets really expensive. They aren’t manly enough or something.
Meanwhile I keep looking across the Atlantic at what I COULD buy if the economy was truly GLOBAL.
I’ll stick with the imports, Saturn and hope for a return of the 5 door Focus to America. I’m going to need another car in two years and I hope to buy GM or Ford. Won’t happen likely though.
I like. A five door, please?
Thanks RobertSD for an informative answer. That all makes sense. I hope Ford can be more successful this time round.