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New mid-sized "Outback" style crossover


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 Clearly, market tastes are changing away from cars and sedans, whatever Ford does to alter the Fusion
is aimed at  better alignment with what buyers now want which is clearly different to preferences even
a few short years ago.

Every time I think what can be done to alter Fusion, the changes seem to take it a lot closer to the Edge,
is that a good thing or does it set up more internal competition or does it complement those sales?

Is Ford looking to do a reset on what it used to call super segment ( Fiesta-Focus-Escape-Fusion)and
change that to vehicles better aligned with today's customers, Puma-Ecosport-Escape-Scout-small Pick up?
a

 

Edited by jpd80
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The only reason some people still think Outback as a wagon is because it was at one time based on the Legacy wagon. That's ancient history. Subaru doesn't even sell a Legacy wagon anymore.

If Outback name had no historical ties to Legacy (it started as Legacy Outback), then most people will just call it what it is... a 5 seat midsize CUV. It is not really any different fundamentally than Santa Fe,  Edge or Grand Cherokee... all four are roughly the same in all dimensions. If Santa Fe or Edge are utilities, than Outback is one too. If Outback is a wagon, then so is Grand Cherokee.

2020 Outback: 191" x 73" x 66"

2019 Santa Fe: 188" x 74" x 66"

2019 Edge: 188" x 76" x 69"

2019 Cherokee: 189" x 77" x 68"

 

 

The article in the OP is somewhat misleading I think in that it points to this Ford being an "Outback like" vehicle. Well, that just says the car Ford is planning is a midsize CUV with 5 seats. So stop the hand wring over whether this is a "wagon" or not... it won't be. Just like Outback is not really a wagon.

I will point to my previous post in this thread... Ford's plan is to sell 2 or 3 utilities in each segment. We know Bronco will be the off-road/rugged one in the midsize category. There is still room for a urban/sleek one and a middle of the road/traditional shape one.

 

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Edited by bzcat
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I think there’s a big difference between cuvs and wagons. Just because they are the same size and have similar function doesn’t mean they look the same. Wagons generally look like a sedan with the back added on while cuvs look more like SUVs.

I’m also curious how this plan of trying to fill every niche with product will work. Seems like in the 80’s and 90’s the ford lineup was much larger with multiple entries in several segments. I thought they got away from that to save money.

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The important part in CUV is the crossover bit, most if not all of them are car based, so yeah there's
an evolutionary route where station wagons and hatchbacks end up becoming Utilities and all of this
is now about blurring the lines.

Mulally's One Ford was born out of a need to strip Ford back to its essentials and regrow from there,
his elimination of vehicles loosely defined as unnecessary duplication was at a time when the
company had a lot more platforms  to juggle and a SAAR that was about 2/3s of today's.

Edited by jpd80
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3 hours ago, T-dubz said:

I’m also curious how this plan of trying to fill every niche with product will work. Seems like in the 80’s and 90’s the ford lineup was much larger with multiple entries in several segments. I thought they got away from that to save money.

They where on different platforms to a point too (Probe/Mustang is the first one to pop into my head)...common platforms/engines with new tophats this go around. 

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1 minute ago, silvrsvt said:

I think it was more or less bad timing and styling that killed the Freestyle/Taurus X off...gas pricing and boring styling didn't help it. 

Yeah, the reason I asked was that the plastic arches reminded me of the Ford "Active" treatment...

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22 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

I think it was more or less bad timing and styling that killed the Freestyle/Taurus X off...gas pricing and boring styling didn't help it. 

Boring (or ugly) styling is a standard feature for "crossovers". Freestyle/TaurusX evolved into a unibody Ford Explorer, which sold in decent numbers despite styling that was just as boring.The iconic Explorer nameplate certainly helped.

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14 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

Boring (or ugly) styling is a standard feature for "crossovers". Freestyle/TaurusX evolved into a unibody Ford Explorer, which sold in decent numbers despite styling that was just as boring.The iconic Explorer nameplate certainly helped.

Ford also took the Taurus x in another direction with longer wheelbase Flex and MKT,
I just wish they'd used the squarer Flex body on the MKT and made the Flex into a low rider Explorer.

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1 hour ago, rperez817 said:

Boring (or ugly) styling is a standard feature for "crossovers". Freestyle/TaurusX evolved into a unibody Ford Explorer, which sold in decent numbers despite styling that was just as boring.The iconic Explorer nameplate certainly helped.

The 2011 Explorer was a far better looking product then the Stylefree/Taurus X was...the goofy rise to the roof towards the back didn't help them one bit. 

As for the evolved bit, that is completely misleading-the Explorer is shorter overall, wider and taller then the Taraus X-they shared the same platform, but it wasn't an evolution-more like a different branch on the tree. 

 

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24 minutes ago, bzcat said:

It's not. Subaru discontnued Legacy wagon.

Levorg is an Impreza wagon.

 

You're right, thanks for the correction bzcat sir. Levorg is about 85 mm shorter than the last Legacy wagon and 65 mm longer than the current Impreza sedan.

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4 hours ago, atomcat68 said:

What the hell?!! Levorg sounds like some big brained alien that chases the Enterprise in a cube shaped spaceship!

Couldn't they come up with something better?

Levorg is supposed to be a combination of letters from 3 words. Legacy + Revolution + Touring. That's what made me think it was a Legacy wagon successor before bzcat corrected me.

The Japanese have a thing for weird car names. In the 1990s Subaru had a kei van named Sambar Dias Astonish!! (exclamation points are part of the name).

17-subaru-sambar_copyright-subaru.jpg

Edited by rperez817
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