Ford has pulled the covers off its future model line up for the next three years – but all they’ll let us tell you right now is this: the future, according to the Blue Oval, is either SUV or Mustang-shaped – and with a hybrid or even full-electric drivetrain.
To prove its belief, the company is planning to slash two saloons from its US line up and add no fewer than five SUVs in the next two years on its way to refreshing 75 per cent of its line up. By 2020 almost nine out of 10 Fords sold in the US will be SUVs not saloons.
And to prove its underlying intent to lead the hybrid market, the company plans to sell more of the petrol-electric-powered vehicles than Prius-maker Toyota by 2021. Almost every new Ford is going to get a hybrid option, including the all-conquering F150 pickup and even the Mustang coupe.
But the company hasn’t gone soft – it knows performance sells. That’s why it’s still planning on sending the new Shelby GT500 into battle by 2020 packing ‘over 700 horsepower’ in its armoury.
Plus it’s adding high-performance ST versions of its more road-based SUV line up, the Explorer and the all-new Escape, which we know as the Kuga here in the UK.
The fabulously politically incorrect Raptor is going to get more, but undisclosed, go-faster, jump-further goodies as the model matures. And its massively successful weekend warrior, adventure spirit is going to be shared with the all-new dirt-loving Bronco, which breaks cover in 2020. Plus an ‘as yet unnamed’ smaller brother – Trucky McTruckface? – compact SUV.
In describing how these two new SUVs fit into the off-roading landscape, Ford says that while Jeeps are all about slow rock-crawling in distant mountains, it’s new mini-range of mud-plugging, sand-flinging, devil-may-care SUVs is all about high-speed off-road adventures. So just think of them as Raptors – or off-road Mustangs – in an SUV shape and you shouldn’t go far wrong.
But what we are supposed to make of the all-electric, Mustang-styling inspired – their words not ours – SUV? Ford calls it ‘a performance battery electric utility’ and says it will be with us by 2020. Lightning wouldn’t be a bad name for it, would it?
It also hinted that when it properly enters the pure battery EV market, it will solve – or at least offer solutions to – a lot of the current issues with owning such a vehicle. Such as range anxiety and charging. Be interesting – and key to its success – to see what those answers might be.
But for now, as they hurriedly recover the models they let us glimpse for a few seconds only, we have to wait and wonder, as we always do in Europe, which of the above models will find their way to us. And when.
Which ones are you most looking forward to seeing – and why?
