Drive 2010 - Sidebar - The 2010 Ford Fusion

article by Ben Lincoln

This trip was an interesting one for me, because it was the first time in quite awhile that I've driven a car made by an American-owned company. Other than rented pickups and vans, I think it might actually have been the first time since I learned to drive in a giant old Ford LTD station wagon.

As much as I'd like to support my country's economy more directly, there are two main reasons that I've gone with imports instead:

Americans still (still!) don't seem to know how to design a reliable car, at least at a price that is competitive. My 2000 Honda Civic is over a decade old and has over 90,000 miles on it as of this writing, and it has literally never broken down. The only preventative maintenance it's required that I couldn't handle myself was having the timing belt replaced at that 90,000 mile mark. Decades ago, Japan used to be known for making cheap junk, but they managed to turn this around and are now responsible for some of the most reliable and advanced consumer manufacturing on the planet. Why can't we do this? There are plenty of exceedingly well-engineered American products, but they're typically for industrial or military markets.
The designers that American manufacturers hire seem to have forgotten how to create a reasonably timeless design for anything other than a truck or van after the middle of the 20th century. This was worst in the 1980s, but continues to this day. Every once in awhile, they will manage to release something that doesn't look like a cartoonish Hot Wheels® toy blown up to life-size, but I think that's mostly random chance. Most American car designs remind me of the garish plaid suits that were inexplicably popular for men 4-5 decades ago: for some reason, a lot of people seem to like them at the time, but they don't age well. Fortunately, I suppose, the first bullet point means that not many people are still being subjected to offences like the 1980s Ford Thunderbird.

One car can't change my mind about an entire industry, but the 2010 Ford Fusion I rented for this trip did leave a very positive impression on me.

The 2010 Ford Fusion

With Flag

Date Shot: 2010-07-16
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon AFS-DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 EDII @ 24mm, f/3.9
Filters: LDP CC1
Date Processed: 2011-02-26
Version: 1.0

In the Fusion's favour:

It is quite roomy on the inside (both the passenger compartment and the trunk), but is not an ungainly behemoth on the outside. It fits nicely into the "mid-sized car" category with e.g. the Honda Accord.
It has excellent fuel economy. During this trip, its overall overage was almost 29MPG, or about 90% of what I recorded with my Civic during my drive in 2007. Keep in mind that the Fusion is significantly larger, and weighs about 40% more than my Civic. While at the time I assumed this was due to it using a hybrid engine, the model I had was actually using a standard engine, so Ford had simply done a great job improving efficiency.
The handling and acceleration were more than adequate, and once I returned home I actually missed the Fusion's faster response to the gas pedal.
The body styling is reasonably nice. I would have done away with the giant chrome grille on the front if I were in charge, but I wasn't embarassed to be seen driving it.

Detracting from the experience somewhat:

The instrument cluster looks like its graphic design was handled by someone whose last job was illustrating ice beer cans. Compare this photo of the Fusion's gauges with this photo of a can of Natural Ice.
Like virtually all American cars, it uses the completely braindead tail-light design where the turn-signal light is red (the same colour as the brake lights) instead of yellow. Are the people who come up with these things red/green colourblind? If those two functions have lights of different colours, then there is no possibility of confusion regarding whether someone is tapping their brakes or is actually signalling for a lane change.
Again, like nearly all American cars, the headlights are controlled by a dial on the dashboard, instead of one of the arms attached to the steering column. I'm not sure if this is the result or the cause of so many of my fellow Americans driving around with their headlights off. Headlight bulbs are cheap! It's OK to use them enough that you need to replace them every 2-3 years!

My complaints are minor, and so I'm not surprised to see that actual car enthusiasts praised it as well. My only concern if I were considering buying one would be what its reliability looked like over time.