The old, good version of Deadspin used to do this great series called “Let’s Remember Some Guys” where they’d just sit around, often on Facebook Live, and invite people to remember some guys. The point never seemed to be to recall Micheal Jordan or Wade Boggs, but rather players like Toni Kukoč or Javy López. Not Hall-of-Famers, just dudes who managed to put together enough seasons in a major league sport to squeeze out a few Topps cards and stick somewhere deep in your memory.
For me, those players are probably Glenn Davis/Kevin Bass of the Astros and Mario Elie/Matt Bullard from the Rockets during their back-to-back Championship seasons. All greats, in a way, but none of them are likely to get an ESPN docuseries made about their lives.
You can play this game with cars all day. For every Pontiac Bonneville SSEi there are a dozen mid-tier, replacement-level Pontiacs you can remember (Le Mans, Torrent, Wave, Sunbird, et cetera). The one that always gets me, though, is the Ford C-Max. I keep thinking about the Ford C-Max.
Why The C-Max Exists
European cars, unlike American ones, tend to grow slowly when it comes to wheelbase and width. The streets of Paris ain’t getting any bigger anytime soon. Older cars, with their lack of modern safety features and thin doors, managed to fill up parking spaces and still offer a decent amount of roominess.
All this began to change in the late ’90s and early ’00s when the compact multipurpose vehicle, or compact MPV, started to become popular in Europe. These were vehicles typically based on an existing compact car platform stretched out as much as automakers could get away with.
Who started the segment is up for debate, though people tend to think it’s either the Renault Scenic or the original Mitsubishi RVR/Dodge Colt Wagon thing. The reality is, automakers had attempted something like this going back to the early ’80s Honda Civic Wagon and Toyota Tercel Wagon, which were taller and more squat than your average estate.
By the early aughts these became the it thing in Europe as the continent wasn’t quite ready for big SUVs yet. Citroen had the Xsara, Renault had the Scenic, and Volkswagen was busy planning a bunch of variations of the MQB platform.
Ford, though, had nothing, and according to a press release from Ford about the Ford C-Max concept, it’s because none of their ideas were good enough yet:
“The compact Multi-Activity Vehicle segment is one of the fastest growing in Europe, and people have been waiting impatiently for Ford’s entry. The truth is, we could have been there sooner. We had plans on the drawing board, but at an intense and soul-searching meeting in Cologne early in 2000, we looked at what we were creating and decided it wasn ’t good enough.
“It wasn’t good enough as a meaningful alternative for our customers to competitors already on the market. It wasn’t good enough to warrant the investment in money and talent we subsequently used more wisely elsewhere. Most importantly, it wasn’t good enough to carry the Ford brand where we wanted it to go, because it was during that summer of 2000 that we fundamentally reshaped the future of Ford of Europe.
That is some intense prose about a compact MPV concept. It’s not wrong, though. Ford of Europe went through a long funk and the early 2000s, which brought us cars like the Focus RS and revised Mondeo, was a legit turning point for the company.
The concept is clearly a version of the Ford Focus of the era stretched in every direction. I think it looks clean and I especially like the sleek greenhouse created by the high beltline. By the time it came into production the the C-Max gained some more production-focused details and the DLO was enlarged to make visibility better.
This isn’t the car we got and, unless I’m in Europe, I don’t think about it that often.
The One I Think About
With the second generation of the Ford Focus moving from the C1 Platform to the Global C Platform it was time for America to get some MPV-y goodness. There was a twist, however, as the only C-Max we’d get would either be a hybrid or a PHEV.
People tend to forget that back in the early 2000s Ford licensed a bunch of hybrid technology from Toyota that eventually found its way into the Ford Escape Hybrid and Mercury Mariner Hybrid. Because of this, Ford and Toyota have long shared a similar architecture for hybrid vehicles (Atkinson cycle engines/planetary gearsets).
With the Escape Hybrid temporarily out and Mercury killed Ford needed something to compete with the Prius and Prius V in the United States. Plus, to sell cars in California it was quite helpful to Ford to have a vehicle that could earn itself some emissions credits (as the C-Max did in Energi/PHEV trim).
These were attractive, affordable, and efficient five-passenger vehicles. When the original C-Max Hybrid went on sale in 2013 it could be had for $24,995 and it promised 47 MPG City/Highway/Combined, better than the Prius V. The Energi was more expensive, but offered 20 miles of pure-EV range.
Unfortunately, Ford perhaps overpromised on the mileage and most reviewers and Consumer Reports found that this wasn’t the case and Ford eventually revised down those figures and paid out money to owners who felt they’d been duped. The issue was that Ford was able to use testing for vehicles with similar powertrains and assume similar mileage, which was a “loophole large enough to drive a hybrid through” as CR concluded. The cars were then switched to 40 or 39 mpg combined, depending on the year.
Did that doom the car? I’m not sure. The C-Max sold 35,210 models in its full first year (2013) and slid every year after that. By 2018, when the car was discontinued, Ford was already eyeing new technology to reach buyers focused on efficiency and had the Mustang Mach-E waiting in the wings to debut the next year.
I Still Kind Of Wished I’d Bought One
When I was in the market for a car back in 2016 the C-Max wasn’t particularly popular and I’d been seeing them going for reasonable prices. I thought I could snag one for as cheap as $24,000.
I asked our friend Tom McParland what he thought and he suggested politely that, since he knew I cared a lot about reliability, “the C-Max and Golf will probably be fine in this regard, but their longevity is a bit of an unknown variable at this time.”
Obviously, the Subaru Forester that Tom very nicely helped me buy at a great discount was likely a better car, though the reliability wasn’t great. Comparing the resale value of the C-Max and the Forester I probably made twice as much on the Subaru as I’d have made on the Ford, so perhaps Tom’s advice was the right advice.
Regrets, I have a few. The Forester was nice in a few ways, but I could have had a hybrid way back in 2016. Think of all the stories I’d have had! Think of all the fuel I’d have saved!
At the Galpin Car Show, we even had a reader, Rex, who brought out his C-Max Energi. I was so excited to see a C-Max. I knew it had to be in the car show and I’m bummed that I got distracted and didn’t get to spend more time checking it out.
Being a car geek means loving cars that are strange to other people. The C-Max is just so European and weird that I wouldn’t have run into many other people who owned one. I can so vividly see the life I’d have led with a Ford C-Max Hybrid. Maybe the Astros would have beaten the Nationals at home! Maybe we’d have gotten more seasons of Jessica Jones!
I think about this all the time. Every time I see one. Every time I see a similar generation Focus. This is insane, obviously. Sometimes when I have a strange thought I’m sure someone else has also had the same thought. But this? This one might just be me.
Also, I’ve never driven one, so perhaps that’s helping keep the allure alive.
Worth noting that they’re still Remembering Some Guys over at Defector dotcom.
Personally, I’m Remembering some Oldsmobile Aleros.
Every time I see a UPS truck the Alero comes to mind.
Is that where those squinty-eyed UPS truck headlights come from? I could never quite place them…
Okay Matt, let’s play I Never.
I never test drove a single car I bought. Not once, and I have owned a lot of cars. Furthermore, I’ve never been immediately unhappy with one of those purchases. It’s crazy, but that’s how deeply I do my research before buying and every vehicle has been what I expected so it’s worked well so far.
Oh hey, I’m Autopian famous! I drove my lovely bright blue C-Max PHEV all the way from Portland, OR to LA just to put it in the Galpin car show. I’m glad other people appreciate it too, if I’d known you had so many thoughts on it Matt I would’ve loved to chat with you more about it!
To answer some of your questions:
It’s actually really great to drive (for a normie car of that era). Despite a similar drivetrain, it’s night and day vs operating a Prius-brand appliancemobile. The steering is drive by wire, but Ford put a lot of effort into making it feel good and be responsive and the handling is pretty good too.
It’s also quick off the line when it’s in all electric mode and I’ve put myself a car length or more ahead of Chargers and such with aggressive people behind the wheel when the light turns green and we’re both first in our lane. Once we get into 30 MPH or higher it levels into more typical power territory but has never left me needing more even when screaming up a hill on a freeway like SB I-5 through the hills into LA.
Hybrid-mode mileage is definitely closer to 40 mpg than their original 47, but with PHEV we get 60+ since we can plug in every night.
Reliability is… imperfect but not terrible? The 2013 and 14 are known for electronic gremlins, and my 2014 has definitely experienced a few though nothing too bad. It also experienced a much worse issue that required replacement of the transaxle at about 90k miles, which would have killed the car if I didn’t love it enough to invest $8k in the repair. Apparently there is some bit inside that will fail and allow a part to start grinding against the inside of the case and if left long enough will make a hole for all the fluid to drain out and then seize up. At least I caught it before it made the hole!
I think the C-Max is a good example of the perfect blend of real button controls and touchscreen. Actual buttons on the steering wheel for radio and the little info screens on the dashboard to the side of the speedo, real buttons on the radio and climate control (and even a real E-brake handle!). But it still has a touchscreen with most of the fun menus (that you fiddle with once when you get the car and then leave alone) hidden behind a requirement that the car is in park before you can access them. It’s the best of both worlds IMHO.
My Wife’s former and now Daughter’s 13 Energi is Blue Candy, a great color, one she often commented about when we saw one. So I searched until I found one in that color, with the right equipment, at a price I was willing to pay.
It is truly the best color, I believe. I narrowed my search based on that color, and ended up driving about 200 miles to another state to get this car. Worth it!
I wish I had found a blue or a red one, I’m stuck with a boring graphite-colored one. Maybe it needs a wrap to liven it up…
The steering is NOT drive by wire.
I fantasize about the 16/17 ones with CarPlay, but ultimately full EVs have come down so much in price that it’s probably not very worthwhile to look for another C-Max that might be on the end of its 10/150 warranty.
I had a 2013 C-MAX Hybrid for three years, and would probably still have it if matching his-n-hers Fiesta STs didn’t effectively fall into our laps in 2016. It was an awesome car: comfortable, roomy, smooth ride, and decent efficiency for its size. Even after the adjusted MPG figures (and the nice check from Ford!) I still loved it. In a way I’m happy I did go the FiST route, because I probably wouldn’t have my Mach-E GT PE today. But I smile every time I see a C-MAX on the road…which is sadly happening less and less!
When we were shopping for a plug in hybrid I researched both the Fusion and C-Max Energi but the ev only range was really kind of disappointing compared to the Volt we ended up getting, but that’s really been the case for a lot of plug-ins, very few get more than around 20 miles pure ev, and a lot of those are really underpowered in ev only. Also wasn’t a big fan of the styling but now we have a Bolt which is pretty similar to the C-Max so I guess that doesn’t matter as much to us lol.
I’ve long held a sneaking suspicion that the Ford Maverick plug in basically leveraged the development from this when they realized that the pickup package would be a much better seller. I don’t have any evidence and could be just speculating, but it made sense to me.
The Escape is currently Ford’s only PHEV. When launched they did say that the Maverick Hybrid could do AWD, which is available for 2025, or PHEV, which they have yet to mention. Personally I’d be interested in a PHEV Mav to park next to our Escape PHEV. The current offering is Ford’s 4th generation hybrid system which does have some improvements over the 3rd gen used in the C-Max and concurrent Fusion/MKZ.
We cross-shopped the C-Max Energi with the Prius PHEV. My only real gripe with any of the Energi’s (both the Fusion and C-Mas) was the poor packaging of the batter. The Prius PHEV packaging won for me. My better half liked the handling of the Prius better than the C-Max.
I’m with you though, I still do think about the C-Max Energi when I see a Fusion – great style only ruined by the packaging.
It’s funny, in college I got to do a small accounting presentation about Ford, and I used the C-Max as a talking point, because (as I suspected) none of my classmates had heard of it.
(Yes, a masters of accounting class of 14 white people is totally representative of the entire country’s population. Don’t @ me.)
I seriously don’t know if I would’ve heard of it if I hadn’t been playing around with configurators on Ford’s website a lot around that time. Even then, I’m not sure I’ve seen more than a handful in my life in person.
But sharing the Prius transmission/hybrid system design to a degree does make me vaguely interested in them now.
There are still a lot out there, the problem is that they are just a non-descript blob of a car that just blends into the background, doesn’t help that most of them are silver or white.
The first few years it was sold as the Focus C-Max in Europe, the dropped the Focus part with the refresh.
There are two in our family, both of which were the wife’s car and/or the primary family truckster at one point in their lives.
The first came about when my wife wrecked her previous daily driver. It was in my busy season and I simply didn’t have much free time. So when she got home with it I assessed the damage and decided she needed a new car. Now my wife is a cheapskate so it definitely had to be another hybrid. I went inside and pulled up my state’s online auction inventory and while they didn’t have any Escape Hybrids they did have a C-Max. I pulled up its maintenance log and the only things I found that weren’t A, B, or C PM was a trip to the dealer for a recall, a windshield replacement and tires about 18 months prior. No trips to the body shop and everything in the pictures looked good including all 4 keys, two IAKs and 2 basic keys (state reqirment for all vehicle bids) so I went down early the next morning and verified all was good. Came home and bid to win.
The wife loved it, great visibility, better handling than most economy cars and a ton of interior space in a small footprint. Now I’ve always purchased fully loaded cars for her car/the main family ride, yet she always said, I don’t need all those fancy things. So I admit that a bit of the reason I purchased it was to give her a fleet grade car.
Everything was fine until I decided maybe since my commute put me in the car ~ 3 hrs a day and ~90 miles much of the year that I should get a car with efficiency and comfort as high priorities. So after looking for sometime I brought home my loaded MKZ hybrid. Since both cars got pretty much the same MPG the MKZ became our family transport. It didn’t take long until the wife started “mentioning” that her car doesn’t have a hole in the roof, leather ect, front and rear parking sensors, ect.
So after a bit of looking I found a C-Max Energi in her favorite color and brought it home for her. Because it was the PHEV that did much of the family duty. Meanwhile her mother had often said how the C-Max was the easiest car for her to get in and out of. We also didn’t like her still using her late husband’s ancient Ranger as her daily driver so the standard C-Max went to her. I sold her Ranger to a client of mine who wanted a beater truck for chores around the house.
My wife loved it and finally realized and admitted that while she doesn’t “need” all of those things she certainly likes having them and we can afford them. Everything was fine until the pandemic rolled around and she went 100% WFH. We just didn’t drive it that much, meanwhile my daughter found herself in a job where she had a long commute and finally decided that it was time to give up on the Panther Love. So I gave it to my Daughter who also loves it.
They are both at something like ~170k now. On the one my MIL drives the only repair has been one front wheel bearing.
The one my daughter drives I don’t know about its history prior to ~60k miles. But since then they only repairs it has seen is a bad Audio Module, that was replaced with a used one for $60 and 15 min, and a dead injector. I spent $100 on 4 Bosch (OE supplier) and 30 min to install.
They both of course have had several oil changes, filters, tires, batteries, wipers and a couple of light bulbs. Both still have original brake parts all around and spark plugs. I do need to change the coolant in both of them as they are now more than 10yrs/150k.
While the resale on that Subaru was definitely higher I think you would have came out ahead financially by far with the C-Max. It would have used far less fuel, saving you a lot of money and it wouldn’t have been in the shop nearly as much, saving you even more money.
Forgot to mention that the first one earned the name Blobby since it is a non-descript blob of a car and the fleet sliver does it no favors. The other is Blobette, since it is fancy and in the bright Blue color.
Great story, but what really got me is…MKZ hybrid! I’d love to hear more about that, as I’ve always had a soft spot for them. Hell, any Lincoln car at this point, but esp. the MKZ. The design was always sharp and it’s grown on me even more since its demise.
Yeah I love mine, It gets 40 mpg in my daily driving and the interior materials are definitely a cut above the Fusion. That Lincoln star is the gateway to the opening panoramic roof, multi adjustable massage seats, adaptive suspension ect. It is fairly quiet and well mannered. It certainly isn’t fast but it isn’t slow either. The handling is good, though I usually leave the suspension in soft mode since too many of its miles are on crappy roads in traffic. Only problem was that it did have a leaky center tail light that was replaced under waranty and the trunk module which apparently certain years had bad programing that eventually leads to it bricking itself. I’m at 115k and don’t see myself getting rid of it anytime soon.
Surprisingly for a pretty much run of the mill type of car it has elicited a number of comments. A lot of people, young, old and in between, have commented that it is a good looking car, but unfortunately for Lincoln it is almost always followed up with what kind of car is that?
One that caught me off guard was the proverbial “hot soccer mom” at Costco who stopped in her tracks with her plied high cart to say “I just got to say that is a really beautiful car” After I said thanks of course she followed it up with “What brand is it? At the other end of the scale, also at Costco but at the gas pump. This guy driving a Rav-4 ineptly pulled in to the middle spot behind me as I was pumping. He let out a chuckle and said “That little thing is a Lincoln?” When I responded yes, he said “Not like the ones I grew up with.”. Note I am far from a young man myself and yeah I know that it is much smaller than Lincolns of yore.
I really think the design has aged well, and I appreciated Ford’s attempts to make it more than just a badge-engineered Fusion. The back end really grew on me, and I really liked how Ford had available Lincoln-only engines for it.
I’m from the same time, so for me, that’s initially what drew me to them – that they weren’t the barges that I grew up with. And now that every other vehicle is a large-ish crossover, they especially seem small and sleek. Which to me feels like an unintentional-but-still-valid nod to the Lincolns of the early ’60s.
Given the tear Lincoln is on with its SUVs – I’m not an SUV guy, but I’m impressed – I’m hopeful when things pivot back to cars again, Lincoln will 1) still be around and 2) will remember stuff like the MKZ.
I find the late MKZ with the Continental looking grille much better looking than the pre-refresh ones. I wouldn’t mind owning one of those with Hybrid power, but they seem so hard to find.
VW Touran. Rented them twice over the years for road trips from Germany to Normandy (once when our daily was an ID.4). Loved that format. Unobtainable in the US.
Back in 2018, when my Focus RS was undergoing the required head gasket inspection, my loaner car was a C-Max. I generally hate small economy cars, but I genuinely liked the C-Max. I even told my wife that if I had a longish commute, the C-Max would be at the top of my list of commuter cars. Did it have the power or handling of my RS? Of course not, but it was pleasant to drive and didn’t feel overly cheap.
This ride could be pimped. No, not fast. No, not sexy, but imminently productive and great MPG, regardless of the “little white Ford lies.”
They’re way quicker than you would think they’d be, as long as you don’t have it in eco mode.
I always compared this to the similarly-sized, yet much more beautiful Mazda 5. Shame that one was discontinued.
These are actually quite quick out of eco mode and they ride plush like a MK4 VW Golf, but with the independent rear of the MK5 Golf. But they handle quite well. I’m sure they could be made to handle better with really good tires. To me, they drive like a quieter, taller MK4 VW Golf with a 12v VR6, and a cvt…that car never actually existed, but that’s the feel of the car to me.
I would swallow that marketing crap about making sure the vehicle they released was good enough to compete against the competition and justify the Ford name if Ford just stopped releasing crap with unreliable quality. I mean do you [ed note: weird analogy removed]
What the literal eff?! Not appropriate.
I missed the analogy, but you know, I’ve had a feeling a certain, er, sarcastic commenter is back, just under a new name; this makes me think I may be right…
The only Fords that have proven to be decently reliable are the ones with this powertrain. Maybe not if you live in Death Valley tho…they unfortunately don’t have a compressor cooled battery pack, just air cooled. The only real concern is the battery pack in the plug in version, but they’re getting replaced gratis. I’m sure you won’t have Toyota grade window regulators, etc…but nothing too absurd to go wrong.
I’ve been a Ford guy forever, and have always gravitated towards their hatchbacks. When it came time to retire the SVT Focus in 2013, I knew I wanted another Ford hatch. It was either an Escape, with the questionable Ecoboost Motors, a Focus ST my wife couldn’t drive, a Focus with the PowerShift transmission, or the CMax.
Having years of experience on the first 2 generations of Ford hybrids, and how crazy reliable they were, I pulled the trigger on a 2013 CMax. The car was a proper set of tires away from being more fun than most people would be willing to admit, it consistently got over 40mpg, and I picked it up for just over 23k, fully loaded. I put over 140k on it with no issues.
I always said it’d be the perfect vehicle, if only it had a bigger cargo area, or even a pickup bed. Ford called my bluff with the Maverick, and once my new Mav arrived, I sold the CMax for $12k.
My only regret is not recommending the car to more people while Ford still made them.
I always ran Pilot Sport A/S 3+ on ours, in the stock size and they definitely did wonders for the car compared to the ones that each of them came with.
Did you have any transmission issues? I read they had to redesign it for 2015 due to premature failures
Not OP but I had both the transmission and battery pack replaced under warranty. the pain points were getting the issues diagnosed, and waiting for the reman replacements to arrive.
Are you me? That’s almost exactly my car trajectory except I got a family truckster instead of the Mav.
Funny, our other car is also a Flex.
I guess I’m just drawn to oddball Fords.
Had a 2016 C-Max Hybrid. It was OTD at $16,600, brand new in Houston. It was a great car. 42mpg on my freeway/stop/go commute, huge inside. I still call it the Tardis.
Got totaled in a fender bender because of $2500+ per headlight. Couldn’t even call it a fender bender, as it was just the front clip and the hood that were damaged. It was replaced with a PHEV Clarity, but it was a perfectly cromulent automobile.
Wow, I thought I got a good deal for 20 grand out the door for an SEL at the end of 2016
It was just an SE, in white.
It’s definitely An Car. A friend calls it the cringe-max but my mom really likes hers. I don’t think that helps it beat the allegations though
Back in 2014, it was either a Cmax or Focus EV. Went for the latter. Bad decision as the Focus EV ended up having issues with its EV system that would cause it to stop randomly. There were only a handful of dealers that could work on it, and it took a month or so before it was repaired. Sold it after that (thanks, Carvana). Cmax would have been the better choice.
2014 had a lot of transmission issues in the CMax, the grass isn’t always greener
Grass is definitely greener on the C-Max side (says the person who had BOTH the transaxle and HV battery packs replaced), the Focus EV range was not anything to write home about.
You’re probably right, as I don’t spend time thinking about actually good cars.
I owned a C-Max twice, first a ‘16 and then a ‘14, both used, loved them, but traded the ‘16 when it started having electrical bugs and lost the ‘14 to road debris and a huge unseen puddle in the dark. Both were PHEVs, comfortable and quick enough, but I’m mostly haunted by the memory of 45+ mpg.
Bought one for my wife in ’14. She drove it until our oldest started driving in ’17. He hated it, called it a refrigerator on wheels. My middle son took it and loves it.
It isn’t sporty, quiet, or comfy but it can haul 4 adults and all their luggage or put the back seats down and you get a ton of room.
Ford did pay us for the inflated MPG figures. I think it was $250.
Remember back when we were kids and we were happy with any car and if we complained about the free hand me down car from our parents they slapped us sold the car and said okay walk to school? We need more of that but without the slapping. Maybe. Jk
My oldest son ended up with his grandmothers ’01 Park Avenue and he LOVED that thing.
I thought my Mom’s 2016 Cmax SEL was super comfy in the front seats, and it had a very smooth and quiet ride. Hers had soundscreen glass and Sync³ had noise canceling…so possibly different from yours. The backseat was only comfortable for 30 minutes, but it was tolerable after…better than flying coach on a 737, but with more legroom and the same headroom. I’m 6’5″.and it’s definitely the smallest car I’ve been in that I legitimately fit in the back seat (I’m 45 now).
And she was unscathed when someone t-boned her while she was driving 50ish and spun her around several times into a telephone pole. Thankfully. Totalled of course because every panel was crushed or bent.
The 2020 GLC300 she got as a replacement has a comparable ride, but it’s louder. And the front seats aren’t nearly as comfortable to me. The back seat is very comfy tho. I have driven them on road trips with her and I preferred the Cmax for 2 people.
The noise cancellation really worked the trick. I was shocked how quiet it was on the freeway for a little tin box.
The only thing the ANC did was cancel the boom from when the gas engine kicked on, otherwise it didn’t do anything.
To tie this back to another recent topic, I always think of them as a car that an alt-universe contemporary Merkur would offer. The Merkur CMX4t or Merkur Aquarius maybe. And with similar results to our universe.
I live in an urban area and still see them fairly regularly. They seem a good city car for everyday car buyers based on practicality, but as we all know, that’s not how most see cars. As in, my parking garage is filled with giant SUVs and pickups that can barely fit, and are even unable to access the lowest level b/c of the overhead pipes…
Also, how many top shot reaction pics does Matt scrutinize before final now, just to be sure he can’t be compared unfavorably to anyone I wonder?
I do suspect the existence of SlackTales vetting topshot headshots.
I feel you deserve a special order of autopia citation in your profile for being the one to cause this!
Ha! He credited somebody else so I’ll gladly cede the recognition given how vehemently he railed against it! If I offend the host I might not get invited back.
I was really intrigued by the C-Max. During a family trip to Europe 20 years ago, both my wife and I were fascinated by the Citroën Picasso. When the C-Max came to the US, we already had a 2006 CR-V and couldn’t justify trading in a perfectly healthy Honda that arguably would be more adept getting up hills in the rare snow events around Seattle.
Trading a Honda in for a Ford is the definition of insanity
Our fleet has thirty (including eleven PHEVs). I think about them all the time, too, but nobody gave me the history and context so thanks, Matt!
They’re sort of quintessential fleet vehicles in that you see them absolutely everywhere and yet never notice. I talk to a lot of people who’ve never heard of it.
They come with a tire reinflation/patch kit tucked in a compartment under the passenger seat; if you ever buy one from a city auction after its retirement, look for that for a little bonus!
Don’t forget the drug smuggling bin under the floor mat on the driver’s side rear.
Lol I forgot about that one! It had a zillion little storage pockets everywhere.
Even *I* get boarded sometimes.
Technically that’s the 120v L1 charger cubby, until they recalled the charger that fit in that space and sent replacements that didn’t fit.
Yes on the Energi the convenience cord fit in there, but for the standard hybrid it was a drug smuggling bin from the get go.
Wow, my disdain for the ecosport and their general awkwardly tall shape made me completely not realize the c-max was a separate car on a different platform… I always thought it weird that people that wouldn’t be seen dead driving a fiesta are all of a sudden OK with it and think a car’s “safer” if you give it a lift kit and call it a crossover.
If you were to drive one, you’d find that it’s not a crossover…it’s a tall Focus that can fit tall people in the backseat *and* tall people in the front seat, *at the same time!*…while carrying their 4 not crazy suitcases, and actually being a reliable 40mpg hybrid…while riding almost exactly like a MK4 VW Golf.