Originally Posted By: Kestas
Ford tried to make a "world car" back in the 90s, with the intent of marketing it to both Europe and North America. It was called the Mondeo and didn't go over well. There were too many subtle differences between the two markets and Ford never pursued making a "world car" again.
True, the Contour didn't do to well here. The average N.A. buyer doesn't place driving dynamics very high on their buying criteria, and value vehicle size/engine size more than the europeans, so the Taurus and Exploder sold, and the Contour didn't.
Quebec is a more european market and manuals and wagons and hatchbacks sell better there, but its only 8 million people, so its hard to bring over specific models for them, although even now Nissan sells the Micra in Canada primarily for Quebec.
Most economy cars do sell well globally (Corolla, Yaris, Fit) and Ford bringing the Focus to N.A. in 1999 did pretty well for them. The gen 2 Focus in europe became a bit more of a mid level car and with people here cross shopping Foci with extremely cheap to produce Cavaliers and Neons, I guess Ford figured people wouldn't pay more for a better driving car, so we got a Focus facelift in 2005 and not a better car.
