Ford Freestyle : new Figo-based crossover unveiled

Ford India today unveiled the Freestyle, its new compact crossover, based on the Figo hatchback. The crossover gets some aesthetic tweaks up its sleeves, which makes it distinct over its regular hatchback avatar.

The car sees the wide grille upfront being finished in matte black, as opposed to the chrome treatment on the Ford Figo. While it also gets smoked headlamps, the biggest change point on the Freestyle is the presence of black claddings all around, which lend it a more imposing look. It also gets a raised stance in the form of higher ground clearance, the exact specifications have not been revealed as of yet.

The vehicle comes with a redesigned front and rear bumpers, faux skid plates that add a masculine touch to the Freestyle and finally, the brushed aluminium finished roof rails complete the crossover styling.

The Ford Freestyle comes with gun-metal finished 15-inch alloys on the top titanium trim and the company has also brought in a completely new 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine from its Dragon series into the Figo-based crossover, which develops 95bhp of power and 120Nm of peak torque. The change in the drivetrain also means that the suspension components have also been slightly updated to accommodate the new engine and to also give an overall raised look to the Figo underneath.

The company hints that the track width has been marginally increased to improve the handling. The new petrol motor will come mated to a completely new 5-speed manual gearbox and will also get the option of an automatic transmission at launch.

The other engine option will include Ford's 1.5-litre four-cylinder diesel unit, which churns out 100bhp of power and will only come with a manual transmission. While Ford hasn't revealed all the changes done to the insides of the crossover, the Freestyle will get the new 6 5-inch touch screen infotainment system from the updated EcoSport and will also support Ford's Sync 3.0 voice command system, along with being functional with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

The Freestyle will come with six airbags in its top trim and will get dual airbags, ABS and EBD as standard safety equipment.

India leads development

Ford India has taken a lead in developing the new Freestyle and has contributed to over 50 percent in its overall engineering. According to Anurag Mehrotra, president and managing director Ford India, “The Freestyle will also be unveiled in Brazil and will be locally produced in both the countries. The crossover has over 85 percent localisation in India and will be produced at our Sanand plant. It will further bring even more diversity to our product portfolio in the country.”

The carmaker is also working towards strengthening its brand equity in India and is enhancing its image by improving upon affordability and accessibility in the country.

"We are enhancing localisation to attract affordability. What started with mere 200 sub-assembly parts in the EcoSport around its launch back in 2010, it has now been enhanced to over 800 sub-assemblies in the updated EcoSport launched recently. This significantly reduces the cost of repair for our customers. We will be putting a sharper focus on service in CY2018.”

“Along with increasing localisation, focusing on quality is our topmost priority, and commencing EcoSport's exports to the North American market only speaks volumes about our quality conscience”, he added.

According to Vinay Raina, executive director, marketing, sales and service, Ford India, “We are also enhancing our dealerships with new sales and service processes. We currently have a network of close to 480 workshops across the country, including 3S facilities, and it is our endeavour to consistently improve our aftersales support to the customers. We have four spare parts warehouses in the country and over 3,500 spare part touch points across India. At the moment, we are well-utilising these establishments.”

The company, which has not seen the second-generation Figo hatchback (launched in 2015) garner sales in line with the potential of the premium hatchback segment, is however, doing notably well on the exports front. The company ships the Figo, the Figo-based Aspire compact sedan and the EcoSport compact crossover to over 50 countries including Europe, Mexico and various middle-eastern markets. The company is leading the tally with 137,112 (+14%) units shipped between April-December 2017, to be the top automobile exporter in FY2017-18.

Ford India now aims to revive the Figo and better utilise the platform with the Freestyle. The crossover will only go on sale in the market in Q2 of CY2018 and will also be exported to Ford India’s existing export markets.