Ford Kuga could come in Lincoln, Mercury flavors, replace Escape, be built in USA
 

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/11/02/r...lavors-replac/

Back to the Kuga, the plan is to begin building the Kuga in Louisville, Kentucky in late 2011 for export to Europe. Sometime after that, the Kuga will replace the Escape and the Lincoln/Mercury editions.

This doesn't make any sense. Escape is one of the best seller in its class. Why replace it?

If something ain't broken - don't fix it.

I was thinkng the same thing. The escape is a great seller, no need to pull GM and can you're "best" asset!

The platform is just getting old and needs to be updated to remain on top of the class.

Either way I like the look a lot and think it could pull off being the Escape.

If you mean just keep producing the current Escape until it stops being a best seller, sorry no. That's the kind of thinking that has given us going on 3 decades worth of the same Ranger. Even best selling models need to move on

If you mean "keep with the Escape name/formula" then I ask you how is the Kuga not able to do that? Other than styling, Kuga is very much similar to Escape. In fact it replaced Escape (Maverick) in the European market, and it's slightly longer/wider. All they would need to do is slap some more rugged looking bodywork/interior and an Escape name on it, and you have Escape 2.0. Ford has already shown with Taurus-MKS and Flet-MKT that they're getting pretty good at unique "top hats" that don't reek of re-badging, and since Kuga's likely to get its mid-life redesign in 2012 that would make it a good time for such an approach.

I agree it is just a little too soft looking.

If they continue as an escape that'll work. I don't think they should change the name. It'd be like going from cavalier to cobalt. One was highly succesful, the other isn't doing as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Escape is traditional body on frame SUV. Kuga is a crossover, built on Focus platform. Kuga would only steal sales from Edge.

Even with SUVs sales being down, Explorer's numbers last year were higher than any midsize crossovers (including Edge).

And plus Kuga is just too much Euro design to succeed in the USA.

I believe it is built on the Ford CD2 platform based off of the Mazda GF platform that te 626 was built on.

So I guess that makes it car based. It also uses a FWD biased configuration.

The escape is a unibody suv, for clarification

I think that the platform the Escape is currently based on is getting long in the tooth. The Kuga platform should be a logical step forward and upward to keep up with the competition. However, Ford the Escape name should be retained for the NA market since it is familiar to many buyers and if they have learned anything, I do think Ford will try to minimize the badge-engineering that has plagued it in the past.