Though not slated for production, the design cues of the Ford Evos Concept will reappear - starting with the 2013 Ford Fusion and Mondeo.
Officially, the new Ford Evos is nothing more than a concept vehicle. The sporty gullwinged 4-door debuting today at the Frankfurt Motor Show today won’t be going into production. But if it strikes your fancy, hang tight. Many of the most appealing design cues will soon reappear at a nearby Ford showroom, senior company officials tell TheDetroitBureau.com, starting with a new model launching at the North American International Auto Show next January.
While Ford’s global design chief J Mays and other officials were cagey when pressed on the future of the new Evos “design language” – Mays hinting we might see more in four months or so – unimpeachable sources confirmed that this would, indeed, translate into a major launch at the Detroit Auto Show. And the first new model to bring the Evos’ design cues to life will be the next-generation Ford Fusion – which be sold in most other markets as the Ford Mondeo.
“We’re at the crossroads,” announced design director Mays during a sneak preview of the Evos, which is meant to be a significant evolution of Ford’s kinetic sculpture design language – which is itself most visible on new models like the Focus and Fiesta. The goal is to come up with a look that is “more than just fun-to-drive,” said Mays, but which also provides a sense of the high technology Ford is engineering into its products.
The gullwings may just be "show biz," according too Mays, but the rest of the Evos' design is very serious.
During the preview, Mays outlined six key features of the Evos that will carry over into future Ford products, including its innovative, coupe-like shape, refined surface language, perceived sense of fuel efficiency, technical graphics and its distinctive face.
The latter two will be especially apparent on the next-generation Fusion/Mondeo. While many of Ford’s competitors have chosen to emphasize the “jewel-like” quality of their headlamps, for example, by making them larger and larger, Ford is going in the opposite direction. The Evos features headlamps that are little more than slits with “laser-cut glass barely revealing the concept’s sharply focused LED bulbs.
The lamps are just one of the features of the new Ford “face,” which evolves the look of the current Ford front end, moving the familiar inverted trapezoid grille higher up to “sit more proudly,” suggested Mays, which gives the Evos “a premium yet attainable feel.”
As for the unusual set of four gullwing doors, they are “totally show biz,” said Mays, though they make it clear that Evos is a sedan, not a coupe.
A closer look at the Evos face.
Often, designers use a show car, like Evos, to reveal a new design theme and test public reaction. Not with Evos. The company had already locked down the new design “DNA,” revealed Maury Callum, a senior European styling executive, before it began work on Evos. But the concept vehicle should help pave the way for the Fusion, Mondeo and other models to follow.
The new look will be most apparent on global vehicles, like the midsize sedan and smaller Focus and Fiesta models, though it will influence larger and more regional offerings like the next Taurus, as well, according to company insiders.
The impact of the Evos won’t be limited to design, stressed Paul Mascarenas, Ford’s vice president of technology and innovation.
“It’s intended to stretch our thinking” about what works in the car and how it can be integrated directly into the vehicle’s design, rather than added almost as an after-thought.
A closer look at Evos' high-tech interior.
Evos contains a variety of advanced features based around cloud computing, so much of the data is stored outside the vehicle. There are a variety of touch-sensitive video screens that make it easy to access and operate not only the infotainment system but brake and suspension settings.
“We want to stitch the car a little more into your every day life,” said Mascarenas. “It’s about the car getting to know you instead of you having to get to know the car.”
Those are more than just buzzwords. Ford has received plenty of recognition for technology, like Sync, it has been incorporating into its products. But it has also been faulted for the complexity of those systems. The maker is promising to make its technology more intuitive and simple to operate and Evos offers an insight into what that might mean with future products, like Fusion and Mondeo.