In early March 2025, two production suspension notices circulated in the circle.
Ford's Saarlouis plant in Germany announced that the Focus production line will be permanently closed in November, and in an email from Mazda's Hiroshima headquarters, the parts inventory list for the overseas version of the Mazda 6 was marked in glaring red - "non-renewable".
Two models that once defined the golden age of family sedans came to an end in the same spring.
Ford Saarlouis plant in Germany
In the surveillance footage of the German factory, the Focus is being slowly pushed into the quality inspection area by a robotic arm as the countdown begins. 25 years ago, it was this car that liberated Europeans from the dull boxy sedans with its sports chassis and high cost-effectiveness.
In 2005, when Changan Ford introduced the second-generation Focus to China, the multi-link rear suspension, known as the "soul of control", made countless young families sign their names on car loan contracts.
On a brightly lit night in the Chongqing factory in 2013, a Focus was produced every 98 seconds on the assembly line. No one could have predicted that the operating rate of this production line would fall below 30% ten years later.
Across the Pacific Ocean, Mazda engineers are dismantling the first generation Mazda 6 exhibition car in the Hiroshima Museum. In 2002, this model, known as the "Philosopher of the Corner", used a 13:1 ultra-high compression ratio engine and "Soul Red" paint to uphold the dignity of naturally aspirated engines in the turbocharged craze.
The Chinese market has been its longest companion. Even when global sales fell in 2020, some old car owners still drove 3,000 kilometers just to buy the last batch of manual transmission models before the Changchun factory stopped production. But perseverance eventually became a shackle. When Tesla Model 3 redefined driving with dual motors and a single pedal mode, the gearbox shifting rhythm that Mazda 6 was proud of became a nostalgic background sound effect on the smart cockpit screen.
Their decline reflects the end of the era of fuel vehicles.
When the Focus was replaced with a three-cylinder engine in 2018, engineers firmly believed that this was the "optimal solution for emissions and performance", but they did not expect that Chinese consumers would vote with their feet, causing monthly sales to plummet from 30,000 units at its peak to 4,000 units.
Stuart Rowley, president of Ford of Europe, confirmed in an earnings conference: "The marginal benefits of developing a new generation of fuel vehicles can no longer cover the opportunity costs of the electrification transformation."
Mazda 6's Skyactiv technology can still control fuel consumption at 5.4L/100km in 2023, but compared with BYD's DM-i hybrid system's data of 2.9L/100km, this persistence seems tragic and lonely.
Even more cruel is the decline in commercial value. Ford's profit from each Focus sold is only one-eighth of that from the F-150 Raptor, while Mazda dealers have already given up 80% of their booths to SUVs.
The countdown for the transformation of factories around the world is accelerating.
One-third of the 5,000 workers at the Saarlouis plant have begun training in high-voltage battery pack assembly; at Mazda's Nanjing R&D center, the EZ-6 electric car, developed under the leadership of Chinese engineers, has a frame rigidity 30% higher than that of the Mazda 6, but it is difficult to replicate the subtle vibration from the steering wheel when cornering.
This sense of rift permeates the entire industry. It took Volkswagen ID.3 three years to barely fill the market gap left by the Golf's production cuts, and Toyota is still wavering between hydrogen energy and pure electric routes. When CATL's engineers increased the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries to 200Wh/kg, the oil temperature, direct injection timing, and exhaust back pressure in the internal combustion engine are becoming specimens in automobile museums.
Behind the technological iteration is the change of cultural memory.
Mazda North America once used three generations of fathers and sons to star in Zoom-Zoom ads, transforming the sound of the internal combustion engine into an emotional bond across generations. This romantic narrative of the mechanical age has gradually lost its voice in the voice interaction ecosystem of the smart cockpit. Just as on the day when the announcement of the suspension of Focus was made, more than 2,000 mourning posts emerged on the British automotive forum AutoTrader, with frequent appearances of concrete memory symbols such as "manual transmission frustration" and "the pulling sound of the mechanical handbrake".
Mazda Hiroshima Headquarters Building
Perhaps the real farewell happened earlier.
In 2019, when the last Focus ST rolled off the assembly line in Germany, a handwritten slogan was hung on the assembly line: Goodbye, my manual transmission youth. When the Atez was discontinued in China in 2021, the 4S store used the Mazda 6 models of all generations to form the shape of the "rotary engine" logo, and 36,000 "tearful" comments floated across the live broadcast room. These moments remind us that the disappearance of classic cars is not only the exit of the product, but also the end of a certain lifestyle.
JD Power research shows that the emotional dependence of people over 35 years old on fuel vehicles is 2.1 times that of Generation Z. This cognitive gap is reshaping market demand. While fans of the Honda Civic Type R are still looking for dopamine stimulation in the 9,000-rpm sound of the red-headed engine, owners of Xiaomi SU7 Ultra have quietly reached 303 kilometers per hour in the dark. Young people are no longer excited by the sound, but are led by the digital circle to discuss "which city NOA is the best", and car friends' gatherings have changed from "running in the mountains" to grabbing spots for charging piles in major rest areas.
The two parallel automobile civilizations are accelerating their divergence in the industrial changes of 2025.
Standing on the viewing platform of the Focus production workshop, plant manager Mueller pointed to the electric Explorer and introduced it to the media: "It accelerates 1.2 seconds faster than the Focus." But when he looked at the last set of four-cylinder engines that had not yet been installed in the warehouse, he suddenly fell silent. It still had a quality commitment sticker from the first generation of Focus assembled in 1998.
The wheels must move forward. When the concept cars at the Munich Motor Show used projection lights to interpret virtual sound waves, and when the showgirls at the Tokyo Tuning Show held up "Electric Drift" billboards, people will eventually understand that the twilight of the internal combustion engine is not the end, but the last medal given to the old times by the era of smart electric vehicles.
Those excitement about the red zone of the tachometer, the G-value on the corners, and the coordination between the manual transmission and the clutch will eventually become nostalgic theme packages that can be OTA-ed in the car system.
Classics never "die", they just roar in a different way.