By Ben Whitworth
First official pictures
24 August 2007 06:00
The new Fiesta? You're having a laugh, aren't you?
The Verve – due to be unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show – signposts Ford’s fresh design direction for next year’s new Fiesta. It's the next step in Ford's kinetic design theme we’ve already seen in the S-Max and Mondeo. So is it really the new Fiesta with a nifty paintjob, some big wheels and some Prada-inspired upholstery fabric? 'There’s much less of a design jump between what you see here and what will arrive in dealers next year,' says Martin Smith, Ford’s European design boss, and the man behind the Verve. Much less than there was between the Iosis and Mondeo. 'It’s truer to the final product than Iosis and Iosis X were.' Which is as close to a yes as you’ll get from a designer.
It looks fantastic for a Fiesta!
Yup, the Verve is drop-dead gorgeous, full of athletic attitude and with a you-want-some stance. It sits on the same-length wheelbase as the current Fiesta but its visual maturity and sophistication make it look longer, lower and sleeker. From that basking shark grille, over its chunky clamshell bonnet, along its integrated headlamps, through its fast windscreen, along its creased doors and round to that clean and tidy rear, the Verve is distinctive and desirable – the very antithesis of the current Fiesta.
It should sell by the truck-load
It should, but the Verve has to be more than a runaway European sales success. It’s also the first of three Ford cars from that will align the company’s global design for America, Europe and the Far East. Verve’s Frankfurt debut will be followed by a second car aimed at the Chinese market that will be bow in at the Tokyo Motor Show, with the third car taking centre stage at the Detroit show in January next year. Which means it will be sold in America, Europe, the Far East and everywhere in between. This design coherence programme is one hell of a headache – creating visual cohesion between disparate cars like the F150 truck in America with the Fiesta in Europe is a big challenge. Which is why Ford’s global design boss J Mays, the man in charge of the project, is working 25 hours a day.
So who's this Smith bloke?
Martin Smith comes with an immaculate design CV, and his cars are all around us. He joined Ford as executive design director in 2004, in time to oversee the creation of new Mondeo. Since then he’s also chalked up the new Fiesta and the upcoming Kuga. Before 2004, he worked at Opel on the current Astra and Corsa ranges. Which means that come next year, pretty much half the metal in every car park in the country will have been designed on Smith’s watch. And that’s before you take on board his time at Porsche and Audi. He’s a man who knows how to make cars look good.
Who is the Verve aimed at?
Under Smith’s watch, Ford has had a total rethink of how it designs cars. 'We asked ourselves what kind of people we wanted to sell cars to, and then when we knew the answer, we built their car,' says Smith. The Verve is aimed squarely at smart, confident and successful European women aged 25 to 30. How does Ford know? Because it talked to around 300 such women across Europe to understand everything about them, from their favourite shops to their types of mobile phones to their gym routines.
The interior looks ice-cool, too
The Verve’s opulent and sensuous cabin is beautifully styled and its look and feel perfectly matches the exterior – a coherence Smith is proud to have achieved. It blends the tactility and functionality of a mobile phone with the luxury and sumptuous feel of a designer handbag, say the design team. 'The colour scheme and trim of this car is aimed directly at women – we wanted to emulate the look and feel of a Prada handbag,' says Smith. And the cabin-centric packaging stems from the me-first attitude of the Verve’s target audience who were more concerned with space up front for themselves than passenger room in the rear.
So could the Verve be the new Puma?
Smith insists that the Verve-inspired Fiesta will come first before Ford starts trying to plug other gaps in its model line-up. Mention of the Puma brings a small smile to Smith’s face – he likes the idea of a spin-off coupe with a name, identity and image of its own. But he wants Ford’s core cars to be in place with a clear design coherence that immediately marks them out as Fords. 'Once we have those fundamentals right then we can look at the white spaces in our product plan.' Which means son of Puma is on the way.
When can I buy this new Fiesta, then?
Fiesta proper will debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2008, in both three- and five-door variants, but we’ll have to wait until November 2008 for its arrival in the UK. There will be a choice of five petrol and three diesel engines, all revised Euro V-compliant versions of existing Fiesta powertrains, with five-speed manual and six-speed CVT-based automatic transmissions. Expect the £10,250 1.25-litre petrol in Zetec trim to be the best-seller, with the £11,950 sub-120g/km CO2 1.4-litre TDCi in second place.
