The AMX/3 was scuppered due to excessive costs and the oil crisis; worse yet, AMC never really attempted to make another halo car after that before being absorbed into Chrysler (now part of Stellantis) in 1987. In fact, it wouldn’t be until 2004 that any mainstream American manufacturer would make a truly successful mid-engined supercar, when the Ford GT (the supercharged V8-powered one) was launched.
About Japaneses cars, I bought my Mitsubishi Carisma in 2001, it was already the second phase and it was a great car. It is rare since it was a European Lancer and was co-developed with Volvo, sharing its chassis with the first generation Volvo S40, and built at NedCar’s factory in Born, the Netherlands. How many memories.
A lot of people don’t like it, what do you think?
Then it was painted black and we put some good wheels on it.
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I had one as spare car with automatic when I broke my leg and my Automatic S-Class was too large for city driving. Despite neglected maintenance, it worked without a failure even with high mileage. The workmanship of the 95 (one of the very very first!) was better than in my 2002 Galant.
Yeah, I read about how Mitsubishi did a helluva work to raise the quality of the workmanship at NedCar, when they built the tragic Volvo 400 series they were still left at DAF levels, more or less…
Pre facelift POLO IV > Post Facelift POLO IV 
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I think that the Ford EcoSport was an interesting car. The toy like styling and proportions along with the fact if ordered in AWD you could get the 2.0 Duratec that was also used in the NC Miata. That along with the swing door hatch and taillight door handle makes this one of my favorite city cars to come out of Detroit for the past 10 years (ignoring the FiST and the FoST).
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I genuinely hate these. Underneath the skin these were basically a Fiesta, but they threw away most of what made that car great (looks, handling, economy, etc.) and yet charged you $7,000 more for it.
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I had the opportunity to drive an ecosport unit in its STline version with the 140hp ecoboost engine. For me, a fun car and the fact that it is higher makes it comfortable in cities like mine where the road is in poor condition and there are rural areas.
I leave you a video in POV, cool car and interior
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I used to work at an used car dealership and I hated those Fords. Not because they were bad cars, no. But because of the trunk!
Putting tires in there was a nightmare! The trunk was surface flat so the tires would slowly roll out. You had to throw them inside really quick and then slam the trunk door shut. The trunk door plastic cover always got tire marks from the tires.
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I actually really love the surface level trunk on my car. So much easier to load/unload heavy stuff without having to lift anything over a threshold.
The Ecosport is one of the few crossovers that still offers a tailgate mounted spare as an option. I’m not a fan of newer Fords, but I can respect that. I maintain that the tailgate is where it rightfully belongs on SUVs and CUVs.
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The EcoSport was (is? idk if it’s still sold, I know it was at least sold for longer outside EU) one of Ford’s strange attempts at selling developing market cars in richer markets. Another being the Ka+, which made some amount more sense as it worked as a Dacia Sandero rival as being essentially a more practical minded cheap version of a Fiesta.
I definitely understand why it was canned in favor of the Puma really quickly in Europe, but it overstayed it’s welcome in any case, especially outside Europe where it stayed for longer. The narrow bodied, shoddy construction was not made with European buyers in mind. It was made for India and Brazil.
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The wet timing belt design it uses appears to be the worst of both worlds. The service interval of a belt with the added labor of a chain, and a failure that isn’t normally present in either, the risk of the belt breaking apart and clogging oil passages if the wrong oil is used, that introduces far too great a risk of failure to be acceptable IMO. They are sold here in the US, but they don’t sell especially well. And in spite of the name, the MPG is rather abysmal for it’s size compared to it’s larger competitors.
No wonder Ford’s modern small cars have such a terrible reputation here, so much so that the EcoSport is now the smallest car they sell here (although they probably won’t sell it here for much longer). Between that and the grenading dual clutches, catastrophic failure is to be expected. Well, unless you drive stick, which most of my fellow Americans are unwilling to do (I used to have a 13 Focus with the 5 speed. It was a decent car).
I will take the loss here, I didnt realize that these had substantial problems.
I thought that these may be as nice and reliable as the Fiesta, having worked on a Fiesta and my parents owning one for a short amount of time. That all being said I still think it looks like a squished toy car almost so I still like the looks even if it is considered ugly by most.
We just had a Fiesta that got sold at the dealership I work at come in for a slipping tranny. Didn’t even last a month after sale. I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t wholesale it due to this risk.
Weird, what year was it?
Can’t remember off the top of my head.
That trundle is/was so freaking UGLY that everyone, myself included, coined an alternate nameplate so derogatory and risky as to be published here. It really looked as if it’s designer(s) penned it after a bad acid trip and, therefore, used anything from their carpool (Late '90s Toyota Camry anyone?) to build such a contraption, only to FAIL miserably at its first autoshow outing.
#JustShameful 