Ford India launches 2018 Aspire at Rs 550,000

Ford India today launched the Aspire facelift with price starting at Rs 555,000 for the base petrol Ambiente trim and going up to Rs 814,000 for the top-spec diesel Titanium+ variant. The petrol-automatic combination is available only on the Titanium trim and is priced at Rs 849,000 .

At this price point, the new Aspire is Rs 20,000 less than the outgoing model, which was priced between Rs 572,000 and Rs 869,000 for the petrol variants (including the automatic) and Rs 744,000 to Rs 846,000 for the diesel trims.

Commenting on the launch, Anurag Mehrotra, president and MD, Ford India, said: “The New Ford Aspire is a complete package, tailor-made for those who don’t follow the crowd and want more out of their car experience. With many segment-best and industry-first features, the new Ford Aspire ensures that every customer gets what they desire - be it looks, the fun of driving attributes, safety and the most-affordable ownership experience.”

The carmaker says for ensuring complete peace-of-mind for customers, the new Ford Aspire is the only compact sedan in India to come with a first-in-class five-year or 100,000km warranty, which includes 2-year factory warranty and 3-year extended warranty. Ford claims that the new Aspire will continue to offer lowest scheduled service and maintenance costs in its segment - at just 38 paise per kilometre for petrol and 46 paise per kilometre for diesel over 100,000 KM.

“The 5-year warranty on offer with the New Ford Aspire reinforces our commitment of treating customers like family & ensures complete peace-of-mind through the ownership cycle,” said Vinay Raina, executive director, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford India. “I am sure customers will be delighted to see the exceptional value on offer with our newest product offering.”

Available in four trims, the new Aspire comes with more safety kit as standard, adding rear parking sensors to ABS with EBD, two airbags, adjustable front and rear seat headrests and a reminder for the front seat belts. The automatic variant also gets hill-start assist, ESP and traction control as standard, while the tops-spec trim adds four more airbags and an emergency assistance service.

The exterior and interior design cues are shared with Ford’s Figo-based cross-hatch, the Freestyle, from the grille on the nose to the 6.5-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Ford’s Sync 3.

Besides the styling tweaks and addition of features, the new Aspire’s powertrain options have also been revamped. The old 88hp, 1.2-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine has been replaced by the 96hp, 1.2-litre three-pot motor from the Freestyle, and claimed fuel economy for the petrol-manual combination has increased from 18.16kpl to 20.4kpl. The 100hp, 1.5-litre diesel engine has been tweaked to deliver improved fuel economy as well, new delivering 0.27kpl more at 26.1kpl.

For the automatic variant, the new Aspire borrows the EcoSport compact SUV’s 123hp, 1.5-litre petrol engine, which is mated to a 6-speed torque convertor unit that replaces the dual-clutch automatic previously available. While the new motor is 13hp and 14Nm more powerful than the outgoing one, fuel efficiency is 0.7kpl down in comparison, at 16.3kpl.

The refreshed Aspire directly rivals the new Honda Amaze (Rs 5.81-9.11 lakh), Maruti Suzuki’s Dzire (Rs 5.60-9.45 lakh), Volkswagen’s Ameo (Rs 5.65-9.99 lakh) and the Hyundai Xcent (Rs 5.61-8.61 lakh). Based on its competition, Ford has priced the new Aspire quite competitively in the compact sedan segment.

The new Aspire is being produced at Ford India’s Sanand factory in Gujarat, for consumers in India and all around the world.