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– Ramesh Sharma

Figo is cool: Mr Alan Mulally (right), President and CEO, Ford Motor Company, with Mr Michael Boneham, President and Managing Director, Ford India, during the unveiling of the Ford Figo in the Capital on Wednesday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Sept. 23 “Ford India Rocks!” declared Mr Alan Mulally, President and CEO, Ford Motor Company, at the special unveiling event of the company’s new small car Figo.

If Ford India’s strategy for the new car works and helps it pull in the volumes, Mr Mulally’s words would have been prophetic, since currently, despite successful products such as the Fiesta and the Ikon, Ford’s share of the passenger car market in India is still relatively low. That could change early next year, when the Figo - the new small car - is launched commercially.

In what could be the culmination of its top-down strategy, Ford India finally unveiled the small car that has been specially designed, developed and tested for the Indian market. The new hatchback will enable Ford to take on Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, which currently dominate the small car market here.

Mr Mulally, who flew in from Detroit for what was quite literally pulling the wraps off the new Figo, feels that “the real story is that Ford is moving towards a majority of the market, which is the size B segment”. The global head foresees small cars accounting for 60 per cent of the car market globally, and “that is where real growth is.”

Mr Mulally, however, ruled out any immediate plans for entering the ultra-low cost car segment, a category that has attracted manufacturers such as Tata Motors and the Bajaj-Renault combine.

With small cars accounting for more than 70 per cent of the Indian market, today’s launch is being pegged as the game changer, which Mr Michael Boneham, President and MD, Ford India, feels would transform Ford into a volume player in India.

Launch next year: The new Figo, Ford’s second attempt at launching hatch, will be rolled out from the company’s manufacturing plant in Chennai beginning 2010, and will also be exported to other Asian markets.

“The size B fits our plans for around the world,” said Mr Mulally. “This is also where the growth is. The US has been a large car, SUV market, while Europe is moving towards smaller cars, and Asia-Pac is witnessing phenomenal growth as primarily a small car market,” he added. In the last one year, the US, for example, has moved from being 70:30 in favour of large cars over midsize and small cars towards more like a 50:50 ratio now. The key enablers are price of fuel and the high quality and reliable safety of small cars too, according to Mr Mulally.

In the future, he expects 60 per cent of all vehicles to be small cars, 25 per cent medium-size vehicles and 15 per cent large. If one considers the small car domination of the price-conscious Indian market, the Figo is a significant move. But the small car’s success will still hinge on Ford’s pricing strategy and its ability to handle buyer perception about the brand’s cost of ownership.

Ford’s new small car – the Figo - is said to have been developed on a new platform. But the exterior of the car is very reminiscent of a few of Ford’s models currently in the market.

The overall design lines are still very Ford like and very European, though there are clearly indicators that the company has attempted to give it a touch of the Orient. The kink in the wraparound headlamps and the oversized airdam are features that are popular in Asian cars.

At the same time, the Figo’s headlamp design also seems to have drawn inspiration from the Ford Ka, an ultra-compact hatch that is popular in Europe. The flared wheel arches and the whole side profile of the Figo also seem to resemble the previous generation Fiesta hatchback.

“The platform of the new hatchback is from the Ford family, design elements have been borrowed from Ford cars across the world. It’s a global platform, whose variations can be used around the world, in other Ford cars”, said Mr Mulally. The Figo is likely to be launched with a 1.2-litre petrol engine and a 1.5-litre diesel engine version too. Ford India only allowed a sneak preview of the exterior of the car at Wednesday’s event, other details including the interior finish and quality and potential price of the car were not shared.

The name Figo, is said to be colloquy in Italian for ‘cool’. But one also wonders if it was derived from ‘Go Fida’, Ford’s slogan for the Fiesta sedan. The platform on which the Figo has been built is also likely to be used for developing a family of similar products said company officials.

Designed to be launched with more than 80 per cent localisation, the Figo is said to have been designed by Ford’s international design team. Ford has no country dedicated design team, but sees a greater role being played by India designers with their knowledge of the requirements of small car consumers.

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