dsbull

i personaly think that its not worth it to spend so much $ on ford contour<ul><li><a href="http://www.auto.com/industry/iwiri1_20001101.htm">http://www.auto.com/industry/iwiri1_20001101.htm</a</li></ul>

JerBer

I am not quite sure that I would classify it as a Contour...

Mok

the contour is a really good car. and AWD, cant beat it.

DRG

The Mondeo receives rave reviews and is very competitive in its class in Europe. As the Contour, the platform was targetted toward a less expensive market segment and was then even further decontented when it didn't sell well, in order to save on cost. This wasn't the fault of the platform, but rather how it was implemented. On top of this, Jaguar has modified this platform a great deal to suit their needs. From what I hear, there was a lot of heated dialogue between Ford and Jaguar based on Jaguar wanting to make sure they wouldn't be diluting their brand image. The AWD comes from the fact that they refused to sell a front-wheel drive Jag and because it would have been prohibitive to modify the platform for rear-wheel drive. AWD solves the problem and also gives an air of novelty to the car (not so novel if you're already a Quattro driver, of course). Jaguar also modifies the engines extensively, using their own cylinder heads, etc. Not to mention a totally unique interior that shares very few corporate parts bin items in visible locations.

JoeO

.. which is a bad thing. I always have an image of some old retired fart getting out of those things (the XJ's). The new X-type's design does not look fresh enough for me. I thought it was suppose to look sporty? I guess not.