Fusion

Make
Ford
Segment
Sedan

The Ford Fusion is living on borrowed time. The once popular mid-size family sedan has been overshadowed by crossovers and Ford has no intention to continue building a slow-selling vehicle. That's simply bad business. Same goes for the Fiesta, Focus, and Taurus – also crossover victims. However, of these four traditional cars, only the Fusion might actually stand a chance of a rebirth of sorts.

According to Autocar, Ford of Europe is working on a radical re-invention of its large family car lineup, specifically the Mondeo, aka the Fusion, S-Max, and Galaxy. The latter two are not sold in North America. The supposed plan is to combine all three of those vehicles into a single crossover-wagon-like vehicle. Think of it as something like a Subaru Outback. Ford has obviously taken note of the Outback's massive US market success, with sales above 20,000 units annually.

The fact that the Outback offers standard all-wheel drive and SUV-like styling bits clearly appeal to buyers. Ford's new crossover-wagon, which could bear the Fusion nameplate, could arrive as soon as 2021. The fact this could happen so soon is because it will be built on the automaker's C2 platform, which underpins the Focus. This platform is highly flexible, meaning it can be stretched and shortened as necessary. Eventually, it'll also underpin the next generation Edge and Fiesta.

Now, the big question is this: will this reborn Mondeo/Fusion come to North America? It's possible, yes, though nothing is confirmed. The C2 platform is already homologated for this continent, evidenced by the new Escape, another C2 recipient.

The Autocar report further states this is going to be a global model, and last time we checked North America is not its own separate planet. Ford has nearly everything already in place: a variety of fuel-efficient engines including hybrid powertrains, the aforementioned platform (which can accommodate AWD), and a huge parts bin to help reduce some costs.

Will it be called Mondeo or Fusion? Perhaps both, assuming Ford repeats the outgoing Mondeo/Fusion relationship. Given the Subaru Outback's years of US market success, it would not surprise us to see the Fusion (nameplate) return in altered form.