Ford to Develop New Low-Cost Saloon

The Chinese market has become one of the most important ones for many carmakers, so it’s natural that it is on its way to receiving dedicated new developments. Case in point with Ford’s recent plans that should see the company build a low-cost saloon for the country, as autocar reports.

It seems that the company has already covered the big city game and is looking to become an important player on the rural market, which comes with some sort of a “virgin” status.

“Our marketing people are telling us there’s demand for an affordable family saloon,” European design boss Martin Smith was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source. “We think the Focus will be very popular in the cities. We’ve done the coastal areas and we’re now looking to move inland.”

The carmaker is planning to use the new C platform in order to cut costs, as required for the emerging markets. The platform currently has global components sharing level of 85 percent (worldwide). The remaining 15 percent come with specific developments due to the fact that the vehicles have to meet different U.S. and European crash legislation.

As for the cost cuts, Ford insists that it will not push things to far, with areas like safety not being affected by this.

“We’d never engineer out safety,” Smith added, “but you could give it single-piece headlights and tail lights, and reduce the glass panels in the side from three to two.”