QQNUSA Ford had underestimated the price sensitivity of Contour's target market, as telling a miscalculation as that tight back seat. Despite its product fumbles, Ford Motor Company seemed in great shape as the new century opened. A 2000-model restyle, much of it patterned on the less radical Mercury Sable, aimed at wider public acceptance, as did a new, more user-friendly dashboard. The smallest was Falcon, which bowed for 1960 as one of the new Big Three compacts (along with Corvair and Chrysler's Valiant). Acceptable road-car passenger space was the rationale, but the cockpit was still race-car cozy for six-footers. Interestingly, that gearbox was designed and built in conjunction with GM.|Islam in Delaware