Con-Fusion

This story from Car&Driver today with the picture above, leads with the words "More than five years after its introduction, the Ford Fusion remains one of the Blue Oval’s most popular models..."

No it isn't, they hardly sold any. Mind you, that disguised version in the photo doesn't look remotely like the current model. I know the disguises are supposed to hide the look of the car but either that is doing a brilliant job or something is very awry here.

Actually, something is very awry here.

To my, European car-recognising brain, a Ford Fusion looks like this...A Fiesta based old-person carrier.

However, to the average American reader, a Ford Fusion looks like this...A Mazda based, Mondeo-sized car.

I had the same problem only reversed, some years ago, when Ford announced the new Galaxy. I was half-expecting something like this...(I had a die-cast one as a kid and I hadn't noticed the slightly different spelling)

But instead, we got the people-carrier we've grown to know and love tolerate...
The new US Fusion will be called a Mondeo. I think this is all part of Ford's plans to have "World Cars" - built the same around the world and named the same around the world. There is a danger that this will make them more boring. I commented in the past about the new Focus.

I'm not a fan.

But I suppose it'll reduce some confusion.