WI: More World Cars

kernals12

Banned
For a very long time, enthusiasts have been frowning about all the car models sold elsewhere that aren't sold here. Ford and GM were particularly egregious in this regard, not sharing a single model between their European, American, and Australian divisions for much of the time even in similar divisions. Let's look at Ford's 1986 lineup to give us an example.
There were 3 different cars in European Large/American Midsized lineup
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Americans got the very excellent Front Wheel Drive Taurus
1986%20ford%20granada%202.8i%20scorpio%201.jpg

Europeans got the rear wheel drive Scorpio (which incidentally was sold briefly in the US under the Merkur nameplate, Merkur being German for Mercury)
1986-1988_Ford_Falcon_%28XF%29_GL_sedan_%282008-08-21%29_01.jpg

Finally, for Australia, they got yet another car, the Falcon

Now for what Europeans call midsized and Americans called compact
1987-ford-tempo-pic-32403-640x480.jpeg

Americans got the Tempo, a car that defined blandness.

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Europeans got the controversially styled Sierra.
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Australians got the Telstar, which I think provides a good balance between the two extremes above

Now for the European Compact/ American subcompact
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Americans got the Escort, which sold well but was a crude and miserable econobox
Ford%20Escort%20Mk3%20(5).jpg

Europeans also got an Escort, but despite sharing a name, it had nothing in common with its transatlantic counterpart.
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Australians got the Laser, essentially a rebadged Mazda Familia.

That is the 3 most important segments of the car market and Ford didn't bother to share one model in any of them. It was the same at GM. More recently, "world cars" have come into vogue, the stupidity of selling different models in different markets going away and instead reaping the economies of scale from sharing. The question is why didn't this take off earlier? It seems like utter stupidity to have not done it.
 

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kernals12

Banned
This problem goes back a long way.
In 1968, GM decided it needed a subcompact. They could've looked at how Opel was eating into the market share of the Volkswagen in its own home market of West Germany and slapped a Chevy badge on this car, the Opel Ascona
Opel%20Ascona%20(3).jpg


But instead they said no. They thought it would be much better to blow lots of money on an all new car with an all new aluminum engine. The result was the disastrous Chevy Vega.
1971-Chevrolet-Vega-Hatchback141957-1024x753.jpg


Ford made the same mistake. In Europe, the Escort was selling very well.

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Again, Ford decided to risk it all on a new design. This gave us the highly explosive Pinto.
1970-ford-pinto-1.jpg
 
The problem for us is that the shock towers on imported cars tend to collapse and fall out on country roads after a few years. This created a unique market for a full size car suitable for Australian conditions.

That said the Australian market isn't totally orphaned, the long running holden commodore was a toughened opel rekord-senator hybrid and the early torana was a development of the Vauxhall viva.
 

kernals12

Banned
The problem for us is that the shock towers on imported cars tend to collapse and fall out on country roads after a few years. This created a unique market for a full size car suitable for Australian conditions.

That said the Australian market isn't totally orphaned, the long running holden commodore was a toughened opel rekord-senator hybrid and the early torana was a development of the Vauxhall viva.
It's gotta be cheaper to put heavy duty suspension on cars than designing entirely new ones.
 

kernals12

Banned
In 1969, Ford Europe brought out the Capri. It was meant to be a smaller Mustang, but in 1974, when the Mustang II was introduced, the Capri ended up being bigger. I assume they didn't just make the Capri the Mustang II because Mercury was doing well selling the Capri as a captive import but Ford never tried hard to differentiate Mercury so why do that with this car?
 
In 1969, Ford Europe brought out the Capri. It was meant to be a smaller Mustang, but in 1974, when the Mustang II was introduced, the Capri ended up being bigger. I assume they didn't just make the Capri the Mustang II because Mercury was doing well selling the Capri as a captive import but Ford never tried hard to differentiate Mercury so why do that with this car?

Ah yes, the Capri. Bigger, slower, more thirsty, more expensive and less room than the equivalent Escort.
 
used to own a Sierra, solid unit that was.

I think i would have liked to see the v8 Sapphire become more popular, what with its v8 engine that used to backfire a ton.
 

kernals12

Banned
used to own a Sierra, solid unit that was.

I think i would have liked to see the v8 Sapphire become more popular, what with its v8 engine that used to backfire a ton.
The Sierra never had a v8, not as factory equipment.
 

kernals12

Banned
It's notable how the Americans were pioneers in putting front wheel drive in big cars. They put it in things like the enormous Cadillac Fleetwood and even the Mercedes SL competitor Cadillac Allante.
 
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What I find interesting is that for the smaller models, there really aren't that many true "world car" models sold worldwide currently. One good example in 2018 of such a "world car" is the Honda Fit/Jazz, all models have a lot in common, especially the interior design.
 
Everything changed in the 80s with Electronic fuel injection.

oh that helps, but the 255 was made to be low emission undersquare engine with good fuel economy(it did with variable venturi carb, when those turds actually ran correctly), but was not geared to take advantage of that, and the small tiny valves(smaller than the original 221 and less compression) and even smaller diameter intake runners, the engine was well choked at 55 highway speeds, with some cars with a 2.26:1 rear axle
 

kernals12

Banned
What I find interesting is that for the smaller models, there really aren't that many true "world car" models sold worldwide currently. One good example in 2018 of such a "world car" is the Honda Fit/Jazz, all models have a lot in common, especially the interior design.
What about the VW Golf and Ford Focus?
 

kernals12

Banned
oh that helps, but the 255 was made to be low emission undersquare engine with good fuel economy(it did with variable venturi carb, when those turds actually ran correctly), but was not geared to take advantage of that, and the small tiny valves(smaller than the original 221 and less compression) and even smaller diameter intake runners, the engine was well choked at 55 highway speeds, with some cars with a 2.26:1 rear axle
Yamaha managed to get 220 Horsepower out of the 3 Liter V6 that went into the Taurus SHO.
 
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