2012 Top Selling Car Now Goes To Ford After Surpassing Toyota
The 2012 top selling vehicle, which is also the world’s most popular car, is the Ford Focus, but the automaker also earned second place with its smaller Fiesta, becoming the best seller in its class.
It’s even more surprising that an American company that builds and sells cars has beat out the Japanese market in its same class, and it’s Ford who never took out a bailout payment in 2008 as other manufacturers did when the market crashed.
There were 737,856 Focuses registered through September, according to Ford Motor Company. Fiesta was at 560,061. Focus is a breakthrough vehicle for Ford, which used to make separate models under the same name for Europe and North America.
The Focus is sold in both marketsNow the same vehicle is sold in both places, and around the world, giving a huge cost saving to the automaker.
“Focus and Fiesta represent the best of our ‘One Ford’ plan,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s executive vice president of Global Marketing, Sales and Service and Lincoln. “In just three years, Ford has transformed our global small car lineup and started winning over customers worldwide with vehicles that are not only fun-to-drive but also fuel-efficient — largely thanks to our award-winning EcoBoost engines.”
The Toyota Corolla was the top selling car for several years.
The Ford Focus made its debut at the 2007 North American International Auto Show with a the 2008–2011 generation, making it available as a wo-door coupe and 4-door sedan. The big difference in the newer models was that the hatchbacks and wagon were discontinued.
Ford also concentrated on redesigning the interior was redesigned, including new seats, a new dashboard design with message center atop of the dashboard, ambient lighting, dashboard panels that simulate brushed aluminum, and Ford’s voice-controlled Sync audio/Bluetooth system.
The thing that helped make the Focus the top selling vehicle was the support beam behind the dashboard for extra structural rigidity.
