COURTESY:motor beam
Ford has just unveiled the Figo compact sedan, calling it the Figo Concept, which will go on sale next year and is similar to the Ka in appearance. The car has been designed by the same team which developed the EcoSport. The Ford Figo Concept is Ford’s vision for an all new global compact car which measures under 4-metres in length and will thus get excise duty benefits. The vehicle will feature advanced technologies and is aimed at emerging markets like India. Ford will manufacture the Figo Sedan in India, exporting it the world over. The vehicle’s interiors haven’t been revealed and the test car featured a dummy dashboard.
Ford hasn’t revealed any details about the Figo Concept. The vehicle was only showcased and definitely looks striking with the Aston Martin inspired front. In concept guise, the Figo sedan is undoubtedly the most attractive sub 4-metre sedan but when it goes into production, expect the styling to be a bit trimmed down. The Figo sedan will get a new name and will replace the Classic. The hatchback version of the Figo Concept (Ka globally) will also be launched in India in the near future. The Figo sedan will compete with the Tata Zest, Maruti DZire, Honda Amaze and Hyundai Grand i10 sedan.
Powering the Ford Figo sedan will be the 1.5-litre diesel engine which powers the Fiesta, this motor outputs 91 BHP of power. The 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine will perform petrol duties on the Figo sedan, but the state of tune is unknown as the turbocharged mill can be tuned in various ways for better efficiency or power. The compact sedan space is heating up, Ford definitely has a promising car in the Figo sedan and on looks alone, the company should find a lot of buyers. Expect Ford to offer all the features on the Figo sedan what it does on the EcoSport. With an aggressive price, we can expect the Figo sedan to be as big a success as the EcoSport.
Exterior Design
The design of the Ford Figo concept derives heavily from the Ford Ka hatchback concept showcased in Brazil in 2013. It’s no surprise as this is essentially the Ford Ka with a boot. The good thing about this design though is that everything jells nicely, and the car looks seamless. We can go ahead and confidently call it smart too, Ford’s ‘Kinetic’ design theory really works it’s magic on this car. Some design elements on the car include:
- Trapezoidal grille, a signature element of Ford’s Kinetic design theme
- Swept back headlamps
- 8-spoke alloy wheels
- Indicator integrated ORVM covers
- Large doors with a huge glass-area
- Shark-fin radio antenna
- Boomerang shaped rear-taillight design
- Silver diffuser on the rear bumper
Interior Design
Ford did not showcase the interiors of the car, the car at the event did not have any interiors. But going by recent trends in Ford’s products, like the Ford EcoSport, you can expect pretty well designed interiors with a whole host of features. Ford did say that they had designed a new media-dock system that would help sync any device to the cars built-in multimedia system.
Features
Ford has not revealed any features that would be available on the production variant of the Ford Figo concept. Though expect the car to be loaded to the gills with features if the Ford EcoSport is taken into consideration.
There were some features mentioned like:
- Power folding ORVMs
- Flexible ORVMs to tackle low speed scrapes in tight city driving conditions
- Media dock
Performance and handling
Ford has been known for creating some of the best driver’s cars in India. And the Ford Figo compact sedan should not disappoint in that segment either. Ford has not revealed any details about powertrains and mechanicals as of now. We can speculate though that Ford will provide the 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol motor in this car, which would make it a hoot to drive. A revised version of the 1.4-litre DuraTorque diesel motor found in the current crop of Ford cars will also be powering the compact sedan.
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