Ford Escort (China)

Ford Escort
Ford Escort photographed at Auto China 2014, Beijing
Overview
Manufacturer	Ford
Production	2015–present
Body and chassis
Class	Compact car
Body style	4-door saloon
Related	Ford Focus

The present-day Ford Escort is a compact executive car sold on the Chinese market by the Ford Motor Company. Following its announcement in mid-2013 that they intended reviving the "Escort" name for a car based on an older version of the Ford Focus,^[1] Ford launched the new Escort in 2015.^[2]

History and lineage

Ford had used the Escort name on three earlier car lines; firstly on a variant of the Ford Squire sold in the UK 1955 to 1961, then on the better-known European Ford Escort sold from 1968 to 2004, and the North American Ford Escort sold between 1980 and 2003.

In 2013, Ford announced its intention to resurrect the "Escort" nameplate on the Chinese market in 2014, with a compact executive car based on the then-current Ford Focus Classic, itself a version of the second generation of Ford Focus. The Chinese Escort was intended to be the technical successor of the Focus Classic and positioned under the current third generation Ford Focus. ^[1]

When launched, the original Ford Focus had itself been the replacement for both the European and the North American Escort lines in their respective markets.

Reception

The UK magazine and website Autocar gave the Escort three out of five stars, expressing surprise that the Escort name had been revived for a market where it had no heritage and commenting that "the Escort name is from another age [and] essentially it is a cheap car cobbled together from Ford’s parts bin". They also noted that the suspension had been tweaked to suit Chinese road conditions, but stated that they did not think it cheap enough for the intended market.^[3]

Gallery

• 
  Side view of the Escort
• 
  Rear end
• 
  The Escort in white

References

1. Tycho de Feijter (2013-07-25). "New Ford Escort will hit the China car market in 2014". CarNewsChina.com. Retrieved 2013-08-29.
2. "Ford Escort launched on the Chinese auto market". 2015-01-05. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
3. "Ford Escort review". Autocar. Retrieved 2015-10-21. The name is a surprising choice as none of the original Escorts were ever officially sold in China [so] there is no heritage [..] suspension settings are on the soft side to compensate for China's poor road conditions. [..] The Escort name is from another age [and] essentially it is a cheap car cobbled together from Ford’s parts bin [..] it just doesn’t seem cheap enough.