Ford Kuga/Escape Concept Will Be Revealed At Detroit Show
2008 Ford Kuga
According to Automotive News Europe, the Ford Motor Company will be unveiling a near-production concept of a medium-sized sport utility vehicle that will replace the Escape in the United States and the Kuga in Europe. The official announcement will be done at the Detroit Motor Show that will be organized in January. The SUV will go into production in the second part of 2012 and it will be sold in the United States as a 2013 model.
The company has not decided yet if the new model will have the same name Kuga/Escape or they will share the same badge once it will be officially unveiled. The One Ford strategy uses a single name for the cars that are sold in different parts of the world, like the Focus and the Fiesta.
The Ford factory in Saarlouis, Germany will most likely lose production of this upcoming model for one of the factories in the United States. Most likely, the new model will be manufactured at the Louisville factory in Kentucky, where Ford is currently making the larger SUV model, the Explorer. In Kansas City, Missouri, the company is producing the Escape model, including a hybrid configuration.
According to Bernhard Mattes, who is running the Ford factories in Germany, the output of the new Focus model that went into production at the beginning of this week will be of about 1,850 per day. The 2012 Focus will be available for sale next March in Germany and by the second quarter of 2011, it should be available in the rest of the continent, according to Mattes.
2008 Ford Kuga
The Ford Kuga was first introduced at the Geneva Auto Show back in 2008 and since then it became a very popular car, ending 2009 as the 2nd best selling SUV in Europe. The best selling SUV of that year was the Volkswagen Tiguan, with 64,546 cars sold. According to JATO Dynamics, the German automaker managed to sell 107.897 Tiguans last year. For the first ten months of this year, Ford was able to deliver 61,146 units of the Kuga, which is 16.6% more in comparison to the similar period of last year. This increase of sales has shrunk the gap between the Kuga and the Tiguan, the latter managing to sell approximately 89,301 units.
The next generation of the Ford Kuga will be manufactured on the new global C architecture that debuted this year with the arrival of the C-Max medium minivan. With this new architecture, Ford will be manufacturing 2 million cars per year. The models underpinned by this architecture will share approximately 80% of the parts whether made in the United States, China, Russia or Europe The 10 models based on the new architecture are the current 5-seat C-Max, current 7-seat Grand C-Max, new Focus 5-door hatchback, new Focus 4-door sedan, new Focus wagon, full electric Focus, the replacements of the Kuga/Escape, Transit Connect small LCV replacement, possible Lincoln variant of the successor of the Kuga/Escape and possible 3-door coupe model, named “Capri.”
Once the model is officially launched at the Detroit Motor Show in January 2011, we will be able to bring fresh information about the replacement of the Kuga/Escape SUV model from Ford.
Post tags: Tags: concept, escape, Ford, kuga
It looks muscular, and I think we can expect a strong powerful engine to be a part of its technical features, but we have to wait and see, what ultimately comes out….