Sales recently began in India for Ford’s “all new” Figo. The launch of the Figo, a five-door sedan/hatchback, was a supposed to be a big deal. It is Ford’s first car designed specifically for the Indian market, and it was introduced by Mullaly himself in India last September. It’s built in Ford’s refurbished Chennai plant, where production started up in early February after a $500 million investment. In addition to producing cars for the local market, where sales are booming and compact cars, the so-called Sub B segment, make up 70% of the sales volume, Ford intends for the Chennai plant to be a supply hub for their Asia, Pacific and Africa operations.
Since arriving in Dearborn with a mandate for change, Ford’s CEO Alan Mullaly has been the primary cheerleader for the automaker’s One Ford program. The 2011 Focus, introduced at the NAIAS in Detroit earlier this year, will be the essentially the same car across global markets. The automaker wants to avoid past errors like building a uniquely inferior version of the previous generation Focus for America. The goal is to reduce costs, and focus all of the company’s global resources behind a single product. When Ford reintroduces the subcompact Fiesta to the US, it also will be nearly the same car as the EU version, introduced a couple years ago.
It is interesting that while Ford is launching the truly all-new Fiesta for the US and European markets, One Ford takes a back seat to financial realities of selling cars in developing countries. While Ford says that the Figo “leverages Ford’s small-car platform architecture, sharing underlying technology with the Ford Fiesta,” in another press release the Dearborn automaker says, “Designed and engineered for the India and export, the new Figo is based on a proven global small car architecture.”
Proven global small car architecture? What this means is that developing countries still get leftovers and old technology. The “all-new” Figo, is really the last generation Fiesta with new sheet metal to conform to Ford’s current “kinetic” design language.
Though the Indian auto market is booming, with record sales in February, it’s still very price sensitive. The least expensive Figo will carry a sticker price of about $7,600 for the 1.2 liter gasoline powered version, rising to $11,660 fully equipped, with a 1.4 liter diesel motor. The new 2011 US spec Fiesta has an MSRP starting at $13,320. Do the math.
Car companies have used aging veterans for their secondary markets for a long time, as recent TTAC articles about Brazilian VW Beetles and Buses will demonstrate. The Jeep XJ Cherokee is still, I believe, in production in China as the XJ2500. The idea, I suppose, is that developing markets have less sophisticated and less demanding consumers. As the Tata Nano demonstrates, when someone is moving from a scooter to an actual car, you don’t necessarily need GPS and electric mirrors standard to sell him on the car.
Leveraging global resources and producing a uniform global product isn’t the only way to save costs. Making the same Fiesta for Europe and North America will cut costs, no doubt, but the investment in the tooling for the new Fiesta will not be recovered for a while. It may not be possible, at this time, to make a profit on the Gen VI car at competitive Indian prices. Meanwhile the tooling for the Gen V Fiesta has already been paid for.
Fortunately, Indians most likely won’t have to wait that long to have access to the latest Fiesta. Ford has said that it intends to announce new product for the Indian market every 12 to 18 months for the foreseeable future. This has led to speculation that Ford may follow the Figo with the new three door Fiesta hatchback. Those rumors, though, peg the price at just around 600,000 rupees, at today’s conversion rate, $13,162, within a couple hundred dollars of the US spec Fiesta’s MSRP. Like I said, do the math.
It’s not bad-looking, aside from the impossible-to-avoid stretchy headlights. Hell, the beltline looks like it might even be sub chin level!
It’s happened!
Everybody likes to crow about who copied who’s design (being particularly hard on the Koreans) – but my first reaction to this photo is – Kia Soul?
Only the front clip though.
Here in Venezuela they’re sending a facelifted version of the current Fiesta (Gen V as per the article). I guess the facelifting was done in Brazil.
Yeah, headlights extended into the fender line seem to be the newest trend/fad. Look at the Ferrari 458. I half expect to see some car (maybe at SEMA first) that has a lamp units that go all the way from the front of the car to the windshield.
It’s interesting just how faddish automotive design can be. Clear taillamp units were big for a while. Gaping maw front ends can be seen from Audi to Bentley to Chrysler to Maserati to Aston Martin. Flame surfacing has caught on (not that it’s a bad thing, what Ed Welborn’s team did with the character line on the LaCrosse is pretty nifty). The Scion xB begat the Kia Soul.
Sometimes I think that life inside a car company design studio must be a bit like producing music. A producer will tell a session player that he needs eight bars of a Hendrix style riff, and a good session player will be able to come up with something that’s original, yet still evokes Jimi. I have no doubt that Franz von H. is trying to evoke the look of much more expensive Maseratis with his front end on the Tesla Model S. Franz denies it and says that the two are completely different, and he’s right, they are, sort of, but he also laughed and said he didn’t know what I was talking about when I raised the subject.
Bill Mitchell acknowledged using ideas from other cars. He was offended when it was suggested that the first Cadillac Seville borrowed its bustle butt from Lincoln’s Versailles (a gussied up Granada to parry Caddy’s tricked out Nova). Mitchell got indignant and said that it was taken from Rolls-Royce and that “if you’re going to steal, steal from the best”. A musician once told me that hacks copy but artists steal.
As the youngest of 5 brothers, I can understand the need for a parent to utilize hand-me-downs whenever possible.
Our (NA) current Focus is based on “proven global small car architecture” i.e. the C170 platform while the rest of the world got an updated Focus with the C1 platform in 2005. I guess Ford considers North America to be part of the developing world.
To me the amazing thing about it is how well the current Focus is selling even though it’s common knowledge the new one comes out in the fall. Makes me think buyers in this segment either don’t know or don’t care how old the current model is. Every other car in the segment is a much more recent design yet if I’m not mistaken the Focus is the #3 seller behind the Civic and Corolla. When I was shopping in this segment the current Focus wasn’t even on my list for consideration.
Had Ford not dumbed down the CT170’s handling with the ‘refresh’ it would have, at least, been dynamically superior to the Corolla and Civic. But… they did.
It’s good to know they learned from this error and will leave the Euro dynamics of the Fiesta and new Focus intact.
“What this means is that developing countries still get leftovers and old technology.”
What? And you thought every generation of new small car in the western world is a gigantic leap forward in engineering? How many ‘new’ small cars out there still rely on Macpherson struts in the front and torsion beam on the back?
Bar a slightly more fuel efficient engine, nicer interiors, modern styling and ‘mod cons’ like air-con and electric windows, mechanically there is very little difference between the new Fiesta and the first Fiesta which rolled out of the factory in Spain in 1976.
While basic layouts on small cars haven’t changed much since the Fiat 128, I would think it’s safe to say that a Gen VI Fiesta has a superstructure that is both stiffer (better handling) and has better crash safety than a Gen I Fiesta. It’s not just stuff that’s added on. I think that the basic body structures are better engineered these days.
Did you see that crash test where they crashed a late model compact Renault into a Volvo 760 and the Renault was much more survivable? Or look at Honda’s ACE body engineering system.
Chassis safety… and hence… chassis stiffness… seems to go up a notch with every generation of car. Driving succeeding generations back to back, you can actually feel the difference in the way they drive.
The stiffer the chassis, the more handling performance you can eke out of it with less suspension work (softer springs and shocks, softer tuning overall).
There is probably a point of diminishing returns, though, where it’ll take a ton of extra weight and price to produce a better chassis… and we’re probably past it. That’s part of why the US didn’t get the Mark 2 Focus. It was an extremely safe, extremely heavy and extremely expensive car to build. Here’s hoping the new one is lighter. A top-of-the-line (not the RS or ST) Mark 2.5 Focus is as heavy as a Mazda6. With half the leg-room.
I’ve been waiting for the Figo launch with keen interest, as there’s some hope it’ll make its way to the rest of Asia. Old rebadged cars are big in India (just look at the Maruti/Suzuki Alto… which is a smash hit). This is because they’re cheap: all the engineering and tooling has already been paid off; they’re well-engineered for the price, and they carry a good nameplate.
That’s some pretty subtle “new sheet metal” there! Aside from the tweaked headlights and front bumper that looks almost exactly like the old Euro market Mark V Fiesta. There’s maybe a slightly different crease in the doors but essentially that’s the car Ford launched here in 2002 recycled for India… so much for “one Ford”
As niky and others point out maybe this is no bad thing – Proven platforms are probably better suited to developing markets since they’re cheaper and more robust. It’s just a bit of a cheek from Ford to be touting the Figo as “all new” and “designed specifically for the Indian market” when it patently isn’t
Down here there’s a large group that controls a lot of Ford and Hyundai dealerships all over the country that has bought all the myriad (stamping, etc.) equipment needed to make the old Hyundai Tucson a “genuine” Brazilian product. Hyundai has helped them out leaving the Tucson moniker out of the new ix35 (?) coming as an imported car in the next few months. The old-new Tucson will sell in the 30k USD range while the new new Tucson ix 35 will reportedly be sold at 45k USD.
Well, I think they’ll never sell in the numbers the current Tucson sells. But they’ll sell. And in numbers that’ll make their owners richer. But they’ll never dominate the segment they’re in unlike dedicated local projects (Ford Ecosport) or imports that kill local on price X equipment (Hyundai i30 as of late).
This One car thing has been around since the 80s. And it doesn’t work. What works is when you get a thing like the Fiat Palio, developed on a Fiat Uno’s platform, but in such a way that reallly attends to local markets needs. Or the Vw Gol that derives from the first few Golfs and passats but has been continuously been developed for local conditions. These sell.
This Figo, which we’ll get, will further send the Fiesta into also ran territory in Brazil. When it gets here its old elsewhere. And it’s not specifically designed to attend to local needs. So Ford will still be the 4th or 5th option of anyone buying in Brazil’s largest market segment (at least 70% if hatches and their derived sedans, SWs, minvans and pick ups are included).