Manufacturer Ford Class Compact car Related | Production 2015–present Body style 4-door saloon | |
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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, Ford launched the new Escort in 2015.
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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.
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.