Ford Confirms C-Max Coming to U.S.

Ford Confirms C-Max Coming to U.S.

At the Frankfurt Motor Show Tuesday, Ford Motor Co. said it will bring the new generation of its popular European compact people-mover, the Focus C-Max, to the U.S. sometime near the end of 2011.

The C-Max, the all-new generation of which was unveiled in Frankfurt, has been a widely acclaimed hit for Ford of Europe since the original went on sale in 2003.

Derrick Kuzak, Ford's group vice president in charge of global product development, told a group of reporters at its Dearborn, Mich., headquarters Monday the initial U.S.-market C-Max will be the 7-passenger variant (to be called the Grand C-Max) that is longer and taller than the standard 5-passenger C-Max and has a sliding rear door on each side. Both are based on Ford's new global C-segment architecture, also used for the Ford Focus.

Ford marketing sources say it has not yet been decided how the vehicle will be badged in the U.S. - the Focus name, for example, may not be included in the car's branding.

More important, Kuzak says Ford is "catching this at an opportune time." He thinks - and many other industry watchers, incidentally - the U.S. market will begin to more closely mirror Europe as consumers and regulators become more concerned with improving fuel-efficiency and reducing emissions.

Achieving those goals is sure to require a downsizing mentality from buyers, a major reason why Ford is committing so much investment and engineering resources to a major expansion in the small C and B segments in the immediate future.

Kuzak says buyers in Europe have shifted dramatically to so-called "multi-activity vehicles" such as the C-Max, which offer increased utility and multiple cargo- and passenger-carrying configurations - yet manage it all in the footprint of a more-efficient C-sized vehicle.

Data shown by Ford indicates that buyers are turning from 5-door hatchbacks, which held the lion's share of European C segment sales a decade ago, to the more versatile, new-age MAVs such as the C-Max and similar vehicles from nearly every European mainstream automaker.

Ford projects that by 2012, MAVs will account for 31 percent of Europe's C-segment sales. The big question is whether European buyers' preference for the MAV body style will translate to the U.S. - a region that until last summer's response to high gasoline prices, historically has demonstrated only intermittent interest in small cars of any stripe.

New Ecoboost Engine and Other Tech, Too

The new C-Max launched at the Frankfurt show - it goes on sale in Europe late next year -  also ushers in Ford's latest iteration of its Ecoboost engine design, which couples turbocharging and direct fuel injection to balloon the torque output from smaller-displacement engines, allowing them to replicate the power of larger engines.

The C-Max will be the first vehicle to use an Ecoboost-ed 1.6-liter 4-cylinder. To now, Ford's Ecoboost technologies have been limited to its 3.5-liter V6, which allow it to generate the power of a V8. Ford says the new 4-cylinder Ecoboost, at 1.6 liters, performs more like a large-displacement 4-pot engine of about 2.5 liters. Final figures aren't ready, but Ford says to expect roughly 180 horsepower and 170 lb.-ft. of torque. If the production engine produces that much power, it equates to a very peppery 112 horsepower per liter.

Kuzak said the C-Max and Grand C-Max also will incorporate a fuel-saving "start-stop" system to shut down the engine during brief periods when the vehicle is stationary, such as while waiting for a stop light. Although stop-start systems now are common in Europe, the C-Max application is Ford's first use of the technology.

The C-Max also will offer other electronic aids typically seen in larger, more upscale models: the increasingly popular blind-spot alert system and a "semi-automatic" parallel-parking system.

Focus Is the Focus for Ford

Ford plans to annually crank out as many as two million vehicles using the new C-segment architecture, said Kuzak. There will be up to 10 unique models based on the platform, he added.

But the Focus is the absolute make-or-break model coming from the new global underpinnings. In addition to its volume in Europe, Ford is bringing the new Focus to the U.S. in 2011 to finally replace the tired version currently on U.S. roads, a model that now is effectively two generations behind the European Focus based on Ford's new C-segment platform.

At the Frankfurt show, Ford also unveiled the Focus ECOnetic, an efficiency-optimized variant of the Focus that delivers almost 62 mpg and huffs out just 99 grams per kilometer of carbon dioxide, the emissions output on which the European Union is keenly concentrated.

Also on display in Frankfurt is an all-electric Focus, which Kuzak said will form a 50-unit demonstration fleet in the United Kingdom next year to ready a production model slated for 2011. - Bill Visnic

Photos by Ford

1 - Ford C-Max

2 - Ford Focus ECOnetic

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.