Global Ford Fiesta debuts in India

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Ford India has issued the following press release:

A new Fiesta developed globally and destined for the subcontinent breaks cover in India today.

Designed and engineered by a team of Ford Australia, Ford India, and European designers and engineers, it is set to revolutionise the Indian market.

Using the nameplate of its successful European cousin, the new Fiesta will position Ford to compete more aggressively in India when it launches in November this year.

"The new Ford Fiesta for India was developed using the disciplines of Ford's global shared technologies," said Ford Australia Vice President of Product Development Trevor Worthington.

"Designers and engineers in Australia worked in very close concert with their colleagues in India and Europe. Importantly, this truly global car was thoroughly researched and developed with the needs and wants of Indian consumers at front of mind."

The new Ford Fiesta features distinctive exterior styling, contemporary interiors, an exciting range of colours and a host of class leading technologies, including a choice of either a Duratec petrol or Duratorq TDCi diesel engine.

"The reveal of the new Fiesta is an exciting time for the product development team at Ford Australia," said Worthington.

"Working with our counterparts around the world, we have provided a complete design and engineering service, from styling and packaging to full engineering, testing and validation.

"The team targeted class-leading attributes of package, dynamics and styling, based on an existing architecture, and fine-tuned with the expertise we developed on Falcon and Territory. Once further details of the new Fiesta are revealed closer to its launch in November, the team's achievement of these attributes will be confirmed."

Equally importantly for Ford Australia, the additional design and engineering work required for the Fiesta and other projects allows a better spread of resources for the company.

"Great design and engineering staff are hard to find," said Worthington.

"When you do find them, they can be hard to retain because the cyclical nature of this industry can mean huge peaks and troughs in engineering and design requirements. Projects such as the new Fiesta mean that the talent we have developed through work on Falcon and Territory can be further developed and deployed across other projects.

"Once we might have lost talented people simply because of the cyclic nature of our own engineering requirements. Now we have expanded our pool of highly trained people and given them additional variety and challenge in working across a wider range of products and customer requirements."