Autoblog

There's the rub. They can bring that car to the country right next to ours but can't bring it in for whatever reason. Instead they feed us a 13-year-old car with a facelift. Unbelievable.

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> the best American cars...are not sold in America

LOL, which ones exactly do you mean?

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"Best American cars not sold in America" ????

Majority of Americans have NIL taste and therefore give the big manufacturers over there no choice other than to bastardise (note the s - no z) fluid WORLD car designs into hideous looking cars you have in that country of yours.

You only have to look at what you have done to the design of Focus you will be selling over there.... shame you couldnt rename it - (least you could have done for the rest of the world)

I love America. But for your info - the rest of the world laughs at your car designs. About time "Detroit" grew some balls and outsourced ALL car designs to other countries. (Yes - even Ethiopia!)

Steve from Australia

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Because the cost of production doesn't justify it yet. Detroit is all quarterly sales and cost/benefit driven. This is why the were (and in some ways, still are) behind the curve on quality, economy and technology.

Detroit is risk averse. The last Focus cost a lot of money and had a few really rough years. No one at Ford wants to be the one to approve a big-dollar launch on a car with little or no margin.

The thing is, the last Focus was the most serious threat to the Asians--certainly moreso than press-release darlings like the Aura and vapourware like the Volt. It beat the Asians at their own game (small cars) and beat them badly enough that it took a whole 1.5 generations for a credible competitor to show up (the 2007 Civic; the Mazda3 doesn't count). It was fawned over both by enthusiasts and Consumer Reports. The Focus had the potential to pull in people who would never have considered a Ford before...

...and Ford proceeded to sit on their hands, rather than kick Honda and Toyota when they were down. The Focus could have been the foundation for a new generation of people who might otherwise have been lost, but Ford screwed up and did nothing. The reason was because the Focus cost too much and Ford wasn't about to pay money now for a return five or ten years down the road.

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More like Mercury GAYcer. They need to just skim the fat and lop off Mercury altogether already.

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Screw the Tracer, this should be the new Mercury Lynx.

Give Mercury a cat theme again, with the Cougar as a flagship.

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In Mexico they sell the Focus ST for 279,900 Pesos which converts to $25,900. Cars always cost more in Europe. And in Mexico the Ford Fusion costs the equivalent of $18,610 while it is sold in the US for $17,770. Using that ratio, the cost for a Focus ST in America would be about
$24,730.

Sure that's still a little more expensive than something like the Mazdaspeed 3, which costs $22,975, but they would probably cheapen the interior to bring the cost down. Either way, it seems like it should be financially viable to sell it in the US, but then what's keeping them from bringing it here?

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Can't sell as a Focus....so rename it. Can't be that hard, right?

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Like Will said, call it a Mercury and it would make perfect sense.

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aman-

They should definitely borrow the design cues going forward.

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