Unless you’ve been living under a rock (without an SUV crawling over it) for the past decade or so, it should come as no surprise that crossovers are quickly pushing minivans out of the market. And now they’ve apparently claimed one more casualty.
Word has it that Ford is discontinuing production of the B-Max in order to make way for more crossovers – specifically the recently revised EcoSport. This according to Automarket, a site based in Romania where the B-Max is made, and brought to our attention by Motor1.com.
Introduced in 2012, the B-Max slots beneath the C-Max and S-Max in Ford’s European lineup of minivans. It’s based on the same sixth-generation Fiesta platform as the EcoSport, but hasn’t been selling nearly as well, as even the European market veers more towards rugged crossovers and away from bulbous minivans.
The second-gen EcoSport also launched in 2012 and has been produced in locations around the world, including Brazil, Russia, China, Thailand, and India. The addition of local production in Romania ought to help the mini crossover take a greater market share in Europe, while the model is introduced to the US market next year following its debut in facelifted form at the LA Auto Show last year.
The EcoSport’s supplanting of the B-Max essentially mirrors (albeit on a smaller scale) the developments in America of over a decade ago, when the Ford Windstar/Freestar was phased out in favor of the Flex crossover.
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