Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General CONtour vs monDEO

Today I repeatedly said those two words, over and over again. And I've come to the conclusion that the name Contour was a help in the demise of the car. At least in a desired function. Serious!

It's just like saying "porsche" for euro sports lux or "civic" for peppy cheap car to "Excursion" for big hauler.

Now apart from the fact that the Contour, well has some nice lines and is rounded (contoured) it gives off a very amERican sound that is too be honest is not so pleasant. Heck maybe that why people mistake it for a taurus, cause it is nicer to pronounce. I tried to make "contour" sound like a fun sporty sedan but to no avail.Every possible way of saying it brought me to this idea.

Esp when I said Mondeo. You can say monDEO, mONdy, MONdeo and they all "sound" good to ear. Whereas it's CONtour (harsh sound) CAHNtour (again harsh from the get-go with the C) conTOur (still sounds harsh even with emphasized "to").contouR (has a boring drawl to it, no pep)

Anyone else prefer Mondeo to Contour. Cause I think, to be honest, it was a bad choice (just on the sound aspect). Call me crazy

I do prefer Mondeo over Contour, but do you think the name would have gotten a lot more yougner buyers interested? I mean, if it was Mondeo, and elderly people still bought the car as much as they did, wouldn't it be weird to see a 65 year old grandmother driving a Mondeo or would we even care sicne we'd be used to calling in Mondeo.

Eh, I like Mystique, X-Men style! I think Ford Mystique would have been pretty cool.

I agree, contour doesn't roll off the tongue very well. that's normally why I just say that I have an svt. it's also why when people see my car, they're like "oh it's an svt" since those are the only badges I got

I agree, Contour isn't the greatest name ... and we all know the travesty of naming the Mercury Mistake!
I can't imagine that changing the name would have helped the car a great deal over here though. Ford really seems to have missed it's target markets with it.

When you consider the Mondeo was designed not only as a family car, but as a 'rep-mobile' (to fight the noble Vauxhall/Opal Cavalier) ... it should have really been released in the same light here. The whole point of a rep-mobile is that it's easy to drive, and is sporty to drive ... as most reps are mid twenties to mid thirties.
What would have helped the Contour/Mystique here would definitely have been to make the V6 standard spec ... maybe with the 4 banger Zetec as a downgrade, or only on a single basic model.
The idea of a 'world car' was/is great, but you really do have to tweak it to match your market. This was the let down, and no name changing would have helped.

Personally though, I wonder what would have happened if they had let the car run in production for longer, and gone all out to hear consumer feedback and react to it.

The problem with the car was that Americans found it TOO small. We know that Americans like things BIG. All you need to do is cross the border from Canada (as I often do) to see a real difference in the types of vehicles which Americans drive. Monster SUV's, full size pickup trucks and big cars. When the Contour was in production, I saw many of them on the road here, every day. It's unfortunate but the Canadian new car market is smaller than California, so we ride the US wave.

If you really want a new Contour go buy an X Type! You can get a 3.0, which really should have been an option in the first place.

I think if it was a straight up drag race the Contour would win by a long shot! In the twisties, they might be neck and neck.

I agree, mondeo sounds much cooler, and they should have kept the contour and tweaked it up instead of keeping the escort zx2, if it was a choice between contour and escort that is.

Focus's are ok, although I like the smoother lines of the contour better, but yeah, the more I think about it the more I like the name mondeo. Dang you shouldn't mention things like that now I'll always think of it when I say contour.

Speaking of mondeos, I saw a sweet one when I was in Mexico

The name Contour sucks. It might as well have been named Escort or Taurus.

Mondeo is cool. At least they're still being made!

The lack of advertising didn't help. The best explanation as to why the Contour was a dud and the Focus was an overwhelming market success is that Ford barely marketed the Contour and when they did it was of the "Stop at your local Ford store and get a thousand dollar rebate on a new car" variety. Hardly inspiring.