Tuesday 10 January 2012

Road - Ford in Detroit

The North American International Auto Show opened its doors to the press this week in Detroit, but there’s more to this year’s show than cars purely for the American market. In these days of ‘global cars’ foreign shows often provide glimpses of what’s in store for us. Like the new Ford Fusion for instance, which was revealed in Detroit this week.

And while the Ford Fusion will go on sale in America later this year, European customers will have to wait till 2013 for the new Ford Mondeo.

With economy and emissions well to the fore, the new Fusion will showcase a number of technological advances including the choice of three petrol powered options including hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains. They’re not so keen on diesel over there as yet, so we’ll have to wait till the Geneva show later this year to see what Ford has planned for us.

The new Fusion will also incorporate seven ‘essential’ new technologies, including a Lane Keeping System, Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®), adaptive cruise control, active park assist, and MyFord Touch®, the latest interactive vehicle operation system and in-car entertainment interface. Ford will also offer an automatic start/stop system and there’s talk of a 4WD version.

The 4 cylinder, 1.6 litre and 2 litre EcoBoost engines will be joined by a new 4 cylinder, 2 litre Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder gasoline with new lithium-ion batteries that save weight and generate more power than previous nickel-metal hydride batteries. This will replace the current 2.5 litre engine.

And for those who enjoy driving for its own sake, Ford have promised to deliver “a driver’s car” with specially tuned electric power-assisted steering (EPAS), MacPherson strut front suspension and an all-new premium-level multilink rear suspension.

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