It turns out that when Ford CEO Alan R. Mulalley said that smaller cars are the future, he may not have been joking. Car and Driver has the details on six European smaller models that the company plans to bring to the United States over the next several years—including a few that we didn't know about previously.

Mark Fields, president of Ford in The Americas, said in the company's recent earnings briefing that although the current U.S. lineup has nothing in common with Ford of Europe products, by 2010, 40 percent of the vehicles will be shared, and by 2013, all of them will be shared.

That means a number of things. First, we'll finally get two body styles for the real Focus, along with two versions of the smaller Fiesta as well. Both of those we already knew. But we'll also get the same mid-size Fusion the next time around as well (meaning, the next time the car is revised). In addition, the report said that Ford is also promising a new Mercury small car in 2010, as well as a new so-called "whitespace" entry (which C/D guesses could mean a product in a niche they currently don't occupy).

Alternative fuel-wise, we won't see any clean diesels just yet. But we will see hybrid Fusion and Milan sedans for the 2010 model year, which will stack up on top of Ford's current Escape and Mariner hybrid SUVs. And with regular gas-engines, the company plans to offer six-speed automatics on all vehicles in two years, and offer start-stop technology as well.