Ford has laid out its stall for next month's Frankfurt motor show, with a new concept signalling the look of the Fiesta replacement, a revised Focus range, the new Kuga compact SUV and a new range of low-emission engines on the way.
Its latest concept car is the new Verve concept, a three-door design study for the US brand's new supermini: the first of three concepts that will be shown before the new car arrives next year.
The latest model to espouse Ford's new design language, entitled "kinetic design", the firm's new styling direction has already influenced the look of the S-Max, and more recently the new Mondeo. It remains to be seen whether the radical rake of the windscreen will make it into production format, but the Verve does manage to include all its various changes within the dimensions of the current Fiesta floorplan.
Increasingly, cars in this segment have started to encroach into their larger counterpart's dimensions but Ford seems determined the new Fiesta replacement will remain significantly smaller than the Focus.
It's not just the supermini's design that is getting a radical makeover: a change to the Fiesta name is also under consideration. A similar debate took place before the launch of the Mondeo. For now the Verve title is being applied only to the concept car.
While the Verve design is new, the underpinnings of the next generation Ford supermini will not be: it will be based on the same chassis and share components with the new Mazda2, already tested in Motors (June 20th, 2007) and arriving in Irish showrooms in the coming months.
Also on show at the Frankfurt show will be a revised Ford Focus range and its new compact SUV derivative, the Kuga. The US car firm is also due to unveil a new range of low CO2 engines at the show which will be sold under the ECOnetic name.
Cars with ECOnetic engines will use a combination of the latest common-rail diesel powertrains together with other carefully-selected features engineered to reduce CO2 emissions to the absolute minimum.
The first to be launched by the end of this year will be the Ford Focus ECOnetic, which promises to deliver CO2 emissions for conventional powertrain technology at just 115g/km. It will feature a 1.6-litre Duratorq TDCi diesel engine with fuel consumption of 4.3 L/100km.