Ford Fusion Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Ford Fusion range
Prices: £12,995-£15,495 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 4-7
Emissions: 116-157g/km
Performance: [1.4 petrol] 0-60mph 13.7s / Max Speed 102mph
Fuel Consumption: [1.4 petrol] (urban) 33.2mpg / (extra urban) 53.3mpg / (combined) 43.5mpg
Safety: Twin front and side airbags
Dimensions: length/width/height 4020/1708/1503mm

GONE FISSION

Our Rating: 7.0 / 10

Ford’s Fusion has established a small but significant Supermini niche for itself. Jonathan Crouch checks out the revised range…

We like to think of ourselves as sporty, active, dynamic and young at heart. In our imaginary promotional video, we throw the skis/surfboard/mountain bikes into the back of a lifestyle-orientated compact car like Ford’s Fusion. We smile an ice-white grin at the camera, check out our tan in the rear view and then pull away. Extreme.

Every day’s a Saturday, the sun always shines and birds never unload on your bonnet. The reality, as Ford and every other manufacturer expect us to forget, is slightly different. It’s a world of screaming kids, garden centres, mother-in-law fetching and 3mph crawls to work. This is what the Fusion was designed for. It works better on the North Circular than it does at the North Face.

It’s lately been revised, with restyling for the bumpers and grille, revised headlamps and tail lamps, thicker body side mouldings and body coloured handles and mirrors on selected models. Inside, a redesign concentrates on improving the feeling of quality and space. Highlights include a smarter fascia with easier to read instruments and a soft-feel upper section to the instrument panel. It’s certainly a big improvement on the cheap-feeling plastic of the original model.

Ford says there are now more than a dozen seat fabric and fascia colour combinations to choose from, giving the interior "an exciting, trendy feel" so "customers can be as stylish, distinctive and original as they like." Which is presumably also the intention behind adding ‘vibrant’ exterior colours that include "tango red", "amethyst", and shocking "sublime". The Fusion range has also been assigned a unique colour - "Spanish olive."

Ford has taking this ‘refreshing’ opportunity to add many features usually only found on larger cars. These include rain sensing wipers, automatic 'home safe' headlamp mode, air conditioning with automatic electronic temperature control, satellite navigation, on-board computer, one-touch-down driver's door window, power folding heated door mirrors, MP3-compatible stereo systems and voice-controlled hands-free phone connection.

Large car technology has also been applied to the electronic system. Each vehicle features a Controller Area Network (CAN) that can circulate specific data throughout the car, as required. Although much of this technology is working out of the driver's sight, there are visible examples such as the duplication of the radio station name and tuning information in the instrument cluster ahead of the driver, and the automatic speed-related volume control. Additionally, the hazard warning lights operate automatically under emergency or heavy braking above 62mph.

There’s a choice of 1.4 and 1.6 petrol and diesel engines spread across three main trim levels – Style +, Zetec and Titanium. Despite still having a front end bluffer than the north section of the Eiger, the Fusion isn’t really a go-anywhere vehicle. Built on the same front-wheel drive underpinnings as the old Fiesta, it is in some respects a latter day incarnation of the Matra Rancho – and if you remember one of those, you really are an anorak. Suffice it to say that it supplied the go-anywhere looks without the need for the expensive go-anywhere hardware that would normally accompany them.

Many have found the Fusion difficult to pigeonhole (including buyers) but that hasn’t stopped Ford from shifting quite a few after a slow sales start. Yes, it’s an old Fiesta on stilts, but the whole effect isn’t unappealing if you accept it for what it is – Ford’s evergreen supermini in a slightly funkier suit.

In designing the Fusion for urban families, a number of key criteria had to be met. These