Yeah, I thought of some cool custom grille too cuz they look good. Some kind of expanded metal as you link to above, or a simple crosshatch plastic design. Even early Aero smaller bars look good.
But the Aero grille we have is high tech:
Ford had developed special grille design in the 1970s that diverts air over hood of car after speed builds up somewhat. In USA we saw it first on imported Ford Fiesta, Europe got it on all their cars.
Later I think Ford changed the design to fewer and larger 'bars' in the grille but it achieved the same purpose. It worked to lower drag and increase mileage.
I was still reading car mags a lot when Ford was working on reducing the grille size in the 1980s, achieving higher flow thru smaller openings as per the original Taurus grille. If they could eliminate the radiator grille entirely it would significantly improve coefficient of drag.
Ford really has lead the industry a lot in aerodynamic design with fuel mileage the goal.
Ford may have done a lot of aerodynamic development, but I wonder about their implementations sometimes. I direct your attention to the 1977-1982 Thunderbird, with their brick-like noses.
Ford may have done a lot of aerodynamic development, but I wonder about their implementations sometimes. I direct your attention to the 1977-1982 Thunderbird, with their brick-like noses.
That was on purpose to make it look like the previous, larger T'birds. Bean counters still ruled a lot, so you see some pretty weird stuff come out from Ford. Witness the Pinto! I've read the designers would have liked to make sweet european style cars but their bosses told them to do 'this and that', so they had to put it in!
Bean counters (financial controllers) can run a business into the ground if they get too much in control. Witness Robert MaNamera's time at Ford --> AmericanHeritage.com / The Outsider
Actually Ford Europe led the way, ahead of Ford USA, in producing modern, sensible automobiles. Funny things is they were designed in part in the USA going back to the 1960s, using Ford USA's design studios, wind tunnels and computers.
Speaking of Focus I'll prob buy an Escort wagon asap for commuting. The Focus seems to be the Escort replacement and I see it has a wagon too. The Escort wagon is a good reliable little car that can still carry some stuff. They sell for reasonable prices and won't kill you to repair them either. Probably the most inexpensive used car to drive now?? I see one for $750USD that interests me. Most are $1500USD approx.
yeah, focus was designed to sucseed Escort in Europe and North America, Mondeo/Contour/Mistiq - replaceent for RWD Scorpio. BTW, Taurus nearly dissapeared from European market... No Ford car of E-class in EU. Cronw Vic. diasppeared too. Where world is going too?
yeah, focus was designed to sucseed Escort in Europe and North America, Mondeo/Contour/Mistiq - replaceent for RWD Scorpio. BTW, Taurus nearly dissapeared from European market... No Ford car of E-class in EU. Cronw Vic. diasppeared too. Where world is going too?
Ford had one of the top selling cars in the Taurus. So it decided to stop making them, and came out with some new models. I thought all the new ones looked cool, but they said the "500" wasn't selling well enough. It looks like it's a bigger car though, not quite as sleek. Now they re-named the 500 as the Taurus. I hope sales take off now.
Stupid trend here is to make cars bigger and bulkier. Must be what Americans love because unless there's a fuel crisis, cars always seem to grow larger. They tried to mimic bigger SUVs even with some little cars, making them much taller than they are wide. Like that frumpy little Toyota Yaris or Echo. Reports say wind disturbs them like a van, they're so tall.
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