The rise of SUVs and pickups has seen a global drop in traditional passenger car sales, with sedans, hatchbacks and wagons becoming increasingly rarer on the road and in showrooms.
Ford famously killed off the Falcon in Australia when it ended local manufacturing in 2016, and followed this with axing the Taurus, Fusion and Focus in the US up until 2020 when it no longer had any sedans in its model mix.
Speaking to Automotive News at the Detroit motor show however, Ford CEO Jim Farley refused to rule out a return to the segment, saying “never say never”, before adding a caveat.
“The sedan market is very vibrant. It’s not that there isn’t a market there. It’s just we couldn’t find a way to compete and be profitable. Well, we may find a way to do that.”
Ford executive chair Bill Ford said the brand is working on vehicles which are lower-cost in a bid to pass savings onto the consumer, but wouldn’t be drawn into commenting on sedans specifically.
It’s not the first time recently that Ford’s executives have talked about sedans, with Farley telling Forrest’s Auto Reviews in December that the new upcoming EV platform – set to debut in a Ranger-sized pickup – would be perfect to underpin a sedan, and it wouldn’t have to be a boring commuter.
“I fell in love with sedans when I was a young guy as a product planner at Toyota. The issue is we’re committed to making all of our vehicles in the US, and making a sedan in the US, the only platforms we have are from Europe,” Farley said.
“People in Europe pay $3000, $4000, $5000 more than the US for a sedan, and we had all the dynamics, sound deadening – all the things we needed to compete in Europe, when we brought to the US, [it was] way too expensive. We lost so much money.
“But now, since we have this challenger project, the skunk works project for this affordable EV, the sedan silhouette turns out to be very clean aerodynamically.
“And so we’re thinking, ‘Should Ford do a rear-wheel drive, high-performance, affordable sedan with a really cool closure system in the back so you can carry a lot of stuff, as an all-electric [vehicle]?’. That’s the way I’m thinking about the sedan.”
Ford is also understood to be planning to launch a sedan version of the Mustang coupe, which would bring it back into the petrol-powered passenger car segment.
However, the business case for what has become an increasingly niche segment is hard to make, especially when the likes of the Ford Maverick – a pickup based on the underpinnings of the Focus and Escape – continues to boost the bottom line.
“One of the big reasons why we had our best sales this decade is the Maverick; affordable versions of our vehicles are really hot-selling,” Farley said, according to Automotive News.
“Customers are telling us: Please offer more. So that’s part of our write-off — we’re retooling those plants for affordable vehicles.”
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