Car Models

FORD’S Australian-developed baby SUV looks to have broken cover in India, where it will be built, ahead of its global debut at next month’s New Delhi motor show.

Official teaser images of the all-new Fiesta-based mini-crossover inadvertently published on Ford’s Indian public website and published by IndianCarsBikes.in appear to confirm as legitimate images previously seen in India, China, Brazil and the United States.

Ford’s budget high-rider – which reports say will be called the EcoSport in India and China – will join a growing list of SUVs in Australian showrooms, where it will be positioned below the compact Focus-based Kuga that finally joins the Australian-made Territory here in March.

Ultimately, these three vehicles are expected to be joined by another SUV developed by Ford Australia, the rugged T6 Ranger-based, Thai-built off-roader that will reportedly be called the Endeavor, at least in some markets.

China’s auto.sohu.com – which has published images of a red EcoSport that are identical to those seen on CarAndDriver.com, as well as a silver version on AutoCarIndia.com and a white model on Brazil’s Autoesporte.com.br – says several EcoSport prototypes have been spied in China, where it will make its national debut at the 2012 Beijing motor show in April. As GoAuto reported in October, Ford has confirmed that a new compact vehicle to be revealed at the 2012 New Delhi Auto Expo on January 5 will be sold in Australia.

Ford Australia has declined to disclose details of the vehicle, but GoAuto understands a large part of the development has been done in Ford Australia’s Victorian engineering centres at Campbellfield and Geelong – the “go-to guys” of Ford global engineering.

As we have also reported, Ford Australia – which also designed the all-new Ranger ute built in Thailand and Ford of India’s top-selling Figo – is leading the development of a still-secret light car for China and it now appears likely that Ford’s Australian arm is engineering volume-selling small cars for the world’s two most populous nations.

The EcoSport should be more sophisticated than the five-door Figo hatchback based on the previous fifth-generation Fiesta that debuted in Europe in 2002.

The images show the EcoSport will share a number of styling features with the Fiesta – a move that would give the little SUV a family resemblance with the Thai-built Fiesta sedan and five-door hatchback already on sale in Australia.

And in keeping with its SUV identity, the sub-four-metre wagon gets a higher stance, bigger wheels, flared wheelarches and – in its final production guise – a spare wheel mounted on the tailgate, but there is no mention of all-wheel drive.

The Ford of India images show the EcoSport will be powered by a new EcoBoost direct-injection turbo-petrol engine of an unknown capacity. This could be the just-released three-cylinder 1.0-litre version that stumps up at least 75kW and 200Nm of torque, or perhaps the 110kW/240Nm 1.6-litre four-cylinder variant.

While the Ford EcoSport is set to be revealed in New Delhi within a month, the Ranger-based SUV is likely to lob at the Bangkok motor show in late March ahead of a late-2012 rollout in Australia, where it will go head to head with the new Thai-made Holden Colorado 7, Nissan Pathfinder, Mitsubishi Challenger and Toyota Prado.

FORD’S game-changing EcoBoost four-cylinder engine promises to propel the Australian-made Falcon large car from zero to 100km/h in just 7.5 seconds – about one second quicker than Holden’s rival 3.0-litre V6 Commodore – when it arrives in the facelifted FG Falcon in April.

And, although no official power, performance or fuel economy figures have been revealed for the first four-cylinder Falcon in the nameplate’s five decades of local production, Ford insiders have described “almost unbelievable” real-world fuel consumption from the EcoBoost variants, which will be 60kg lighter than the 1700kg-plus six-cylinder models that continue with the venerable in-line 4.0-litre engine made in Geelong.

Ford Australia president and CEO Bob Graziano told journalists who were invited to sample – briefly – the 2.0-litre turbocharged direct-injection EcoBoost Falcon at Ford’s You Yangs proving ground in Victoria last week that the EcoBoost Falcon would offer customers more choice.

The exercise was designed partly to ramp up publicity ahead of the launch of the 2012 FG Mark II range that starts with the six-cylinder models in late January, but also to help allay scepticism about the ability of the imported four-cylinder engine to haul the bulky sedan with satisfactory pace.

In back-to-back sprints in development cars driven by Ford engineers and with GoAuto in the passenger seat, electronic timers recorded a best run of 7.0 seconds for the six-cylinder Falcon for the 0-100km/h dash, and then 7.5 seconds for the EcoBoost model.

The 2.0-litre turbo EcoBoost Falcon’s time was a full second quicker to 100km/h than its similarly equipped EcoBoost stablemate, the Mondeo Zetec, for which Ford claims a time of 8.5 seconds.

However, while the Mondeo’s EcoBoost engine packs 149kW of power and 300Nm of torque, the Falcon is believed to get a hi-po variant producing about 177kW and 340Nm.

The engine has been localised in a three-year program by Ford Australia engineers for its rear-drive application in the Falcon – a global first for Ford, which has already launched EcoBoost in a wide variety of Ford front-drive and all-wheel-drive vehicles (as well as Volvo and Land Rover models).

Ford says that more than 80 per cent of the company’s global nameplates will be available with EcoBoost by 2013.

Ford Australia realises that the hardest part of the EcoBoost exercise will be convincing Falcon buyers that a four-cylinder engine can do the job – and probably to pay more for it.

No EcoBoost pricing has been revealed, but Ford has already announced price cuts of up to $3655 for the I6 models that go on sale late this month.

The fleet-friendly I6 XT entry model – now $37,325 – will undercut the list price of Holden’s most affordable Commodore, the 3.0-litre Omega, by $2755, leaving room for the EcoBoost variant to match or undercut the Holden model too.

The EcoBoost engine also will be available in mid-range G6 and range-topping G6E.

The EcoBoost Falcon should win bragging rights over other Australian large cars, with a probable combined fuel reading of less than 8.5 litres per 100km, based on the performance of the Mondeo Zetec, which weighs about 120kg less than the Falcon and records an official Australian combined fuel reading of 8.0L/100km and CO2 output of 187g/km on 95-RON fuel.

The 4.0-litre six-cylinder Falcon officially returns 9.9L/100km and 235g/km on 91 RON, while the most efficient Holden Commodore, the 3.0-litre V6 SIDI, manages 8.9L/100km and 210g/km, also on 91 RON.

Noticeably lighter in the nose, the EcoBoost Falcon turned into corners nimbly and punched out of them with no noticeable turbo lag.

The car absorbed the track’s numerous bumps and lumps with all the aplomb for which the FG Falcon has been renowned.

The car also rides as quietly as any Falcon, even though direct-injection four-cylinder engines are inherently noisier than well-ironed sixes. One of the noise abatement measures in the EcoBoost variant is a heavier acoustic windscreen.

Engineers found major weight savings in the powertrain, which apart from the smaller and lighter engine also includes a lighter version of the ZF six-speed transmission, which does not have to handle high levels of torque like the six-cylinder driveline.

The Mark II FG retains the old-style hydraulic-mechanical steering (the Territory has moved to fuel-saving electro-mechanical), and along with it a fair amount of steering effort and large handfuls of steering lock.

As Cars has already reported, the FG Falcon gets a fresh look across the nose – similar to that of the recently upgraded SZ Territory – and a number of other Territory-style improvements such as the eight-inch touchscreen in the dash as standard equipment on all models except the XT (on which it is optional), side curtain airbags and rear parking sensors across all models.

Audio systems have also been upgraded across the range, with systems now including a USB port.

The overall impression of the EcoBoost Falcon is that it has what it takes to win a lot of friends, just like two of Ford Australia’s other recent innovations, the diesel Territory and EcoLPI gas-powered Falcon.