Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
Regardless of ownership, that generation of Ford cars (ie. Fusion, Focus, Fiesta, even the Transit Connect) were all pretty handsome looking... atleast on the outside. The ST's especially looked great imo.
Ford also ripped off Land Rover (another brand they sold a few years before) with their Explorer around that time. Not sure if there was cycle overlap, more influence from the UK division, or they just had a thing for British design....but you could do a lot worse for influence.
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Ford needed
something, and
shamelessly ripping off taking creative influences from European automakers they'd previously owned was a smart play, it really made their vehicles quite a bit more handsome than the competing GM and Chrysler offerings.
Fun trivia, the first Range Rover Sport (L320) was designed during Ford's ownership of Land Rover. Ford brass wanted Land Rover to use the existing Ford Explorer platform as the underpinning for it. Land Rover shut that down as soon as they actually got their hands on an Explorer and realized what the hell they'd be working with, and it ended up using a shortened Discovery 3 / LR3 platform instead.