He said: “If the only reason to buy a car is price, then heritage matters not at all-but there are more reasons to buy a car, and this emotional connection people have with Ford matters.
“But heritage alone doesn’t sell vehicles: it needs to be a good proposition, and having a sporty car is what people like to drive. We’re convinced that, say, having a lot of touchscreens in a car doesn’t necessarily make it the best car. Driving dynamics is something Ford has traditionally been really good at, and we’ll double down on this.”
This doesn’t mean that all new Fords will be hardcore rally-infused models, but rather that their handling traits will emphasise fun driving. Weingärtner insisted that Ford would be able to accomplish that on platforms developed by a different company.
“We can’t just have that as a marketing slogan. It needs to be injected into the core technical elements of the vehicle,” said Weingärtner. “That’s what we’re going to do with the dampers, suspension and all those kinds of things [so it] will be true to Ford.
“The charging system of an EV platform might not be ours, but that has nothing to do with how a vehicle drives. The driving dynamics, all the things that matter, all the tunable elements and the design that will all be true to Ford.”
Wider role for van division
Ford Pro, the firm’s commercial vehicle arm, has long been the main profit driver of its European operations and in the future will push further into developing software-based services enabled by more advanced EVs. But it will expand its product line-up too, including the new Transit City electric van that has been developed with Chinese firm JMC.
Ford will also launch a new Super Duty variant of the Ranger pick-up, which is intended for use by emergency services and the military as well as in heavy-duty industries such as forestry and mining. It can tow up to 4.5 tonnes, has a payload of close to 2.0 tonnes and features beefed-up suspension and extra underbody protection.
Ford has used the Super Duty badge in the US since 1999 for a range of extreme commercial variants of its F-Series pick-ups.