Will Ford Find Verve in Europe?
At the unveiling of the Verve concept car, one of Ford CEO Alan Mulally's minions stepped up to the microphone at the Detroit Auto Show and [dare I say boldly] declared that "Europe is our future." When pressed on the which cars when part of this meta-point, Big Al stretched the boundaries of the word "vague" to near-breaking point. "We plan to import cars from Europe at some time in the future." Meanwhile, the Honda Civic-like (with European Blue Oval design cues) Verve looks ready for production– though shod with red wall tires straight from the Hot Wheels School of Design. Ford also hinted there could be a three-door version, if you know, there is. Let's hope the car's acceleration matches the speed at which the FoMoCo's flackmeister went over the Verve's salient features.
Click here for TTAC's pictures of the Ford Verve Concept
[reported by Sajeev Mehta]
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My understanding is that the Verve is quite a bit smaller than the current Focus (both European and American versions). It looks good NOW. If they can get it over here before everyone has moved on to the next new thing, Ford would have a good chance of selling a few. The way Ford seems to run things, it probably won't be available in the U.S. until 2012 or so.
Mulally speaks like Jesus in parables. `Europe is our future!` If I insert babel fish in my ear and get translation , it sounds the following-` We are unable to construct any meaningful car ourselves. let`s import a german engineered tin on a japanese platform.` Amen.
FYI. Verve will replace the Fiesta in Europe, the model below the Focus. The old MY99 Focus (CW170) was restyled in North America for MY07/08 rather than replaced by the latest European Focus (C307), because it was too costly a design (investment & BOM) for North America. How will Ford manage to make the Verve/Fiesta cost competitive for North America?? There is a basic problem in selling European designed vehicles in the USA, which is that Europeans are prepared to pay substantially higher prices for smaller vehicles such as the Verve or Focus than Americans. In European this size of vehicle is low end family transport, in the USA they are primarily entry vehicles for young people.
I can't access the pixamo photos, the website is blocked by the company netnanny, but the picture above looks like a cross between the Peugeot 207 and a Swindon (UK) Civic. I agree, this car looks good, but once you put regular wheels on it and remove the (in UK) illegal window tint, it'll look less Hot Wheels, and more pedestrian. What I want to know is why all current car design seems to be attempting to make the car look faster by smearing the headlights up the bonnet (hood) to the door mirrors...