An unwanted Ford Fusion
It’s now 20 years since a new Ford made its debut in UK showrooms, but Sam Skelton isn’t about to break out the party hats.
Iwant to start this column by apologising to everyone who has ever seen or experienced a Ford Fusion. It wasn’t my fault; I just think you are owed one, and nobody else is offering. It’s 20 years since this meretricious motor first crept into showrooms, and alarmingly only half that since its overdue demise. I’m sure it has provided honest and simple transportation for many people, but the fact of the matter is this: It was always redundant.
This is because Ford already offered two hatchbacks in the small to medium sector – the Fiesta and Focus. The latter won almost every Car of the Year gong going, while the former was a driving school favourite. Prices and specs overlapped nicely, and both drove well. Clearly, though, the six-inch gap between the two needed filling with a new model. One that looked exactly like a Fiesta but shared none of its panels or panache. A basic Fusion 1 with a 1.4 engine cost precisely the same as a Fiesta 1.4LX, and just £500 less than the Focus 1.4CL. The poshest Fusion 3 might have been £800 more than the Fiesta 1.6 Ghia, but it was also only £80 cheaper than a Focus 1.8 Zetec. Depreciation hit the Fusion hardest, and it enjoyed the “Top Gear Most Pointless Car Of The Year 2002” award. And they were right. The only reason you could possibly have for considering a Fusion over a Fiesta or Focus is if you are called Beldar Conehead.
The last time I checked, though, there was only one Beldar Conehead, and he drove a Mercury Sable. The Fusion might have been a Ford corporate response to his need to go everywhere with the sunroof open, but that doesn’t explain why it was and has remained so popular. In my local small market town, I see four or five on a regular basis. Yesterday, in a 20-space car park, I encountered two of the things and witnessed three of them within a quarter of a mile of each other on a recent photoshoot. It’s bordering on the obscene. They’re more common than buses around here.
My girlfriend has become sick of my rants on the subject, which is why I reasoned that I might as well write them up and get paid for it rather than jeopardising home-life harmony further. But it isn’t as if my argument is without a premise. Advocates of the Fusion – there’s bound to be one somewhere – would no doubt argue that it’s supposed to be a mini MPV. If it is, then Vauxhall gave us a far more convincing stab with the Meriva, and even the Honda Jazz is more innovative than a Fiesta on growth hormones. The Citroën Berlingo does the job best of all.
The Fusion really is the epitome of the unexceptional car, a fusion of lazy design and lazy marketing. By the time you read this, I will have done my duty in judging the 2022 Festival of the Unexceptional. We gave victory to the truly mundane; a basic Vauxhall Astra Mk3 Merit – a move which ensured it earned its badge in a world where even the meretricious have merit of a sort. In another 10 years, the chances are that the sight of a Fusion in the concours will please me – a banal box that has defied the odds to survive. But there only needs to be the one, as a reminder of how we lost our way. After all, we need to learn from history in order not to repeat it.
The Ford Fusion is still a common sight. Too common, argues Sam.