Crossover or Dead Cross??. Review on Ford Fusion

Among all the excitement in the new car launches in comes the Ford Fusion. It could'nt manage to win any awards but lets discover this Crossover Vehicle.

Highly Unconventional -Looks like a much scaled down SUV or a bulky hatchback.It's shape is that of an SUV although much lower in hieght.Front headlamps look cool and in some way give an impression of a Wagon-R or even an Opel Vectra(Strange Comparison Right??). For those who like big and imposing vehicles in the SUV image -sorry this is clearly not that sort of a car!.But yet something very different and modern. Read on..

What Fusion will make you notice is its SUV type of styling and 15-inch wheels.Good Ground Clearance is supportive of some mild Off Roading.Fusion has the looks of a mini-SUV from the front, thanks largely to a blunt nose, and imparts a strong impression of purposefulness Fusion with over 4 mtr in length falls clearly in the Lower-C-segment. But Surprisingly it's price tag puts it in Higher C-Segment up against City or even Scorpio.

It was high time that Ford India expanded its product portfolio and increased the spread of its products with the ageing Ikon not being able to carry the company by itself and the Endeavour and the Mondeo being relatively low volume products. That, however seems not to be the case as the Fusion, in all likelihood will be placed above the Ikon, something for the Ikon owners to graduate to.Looks pretty undigestable???

The Fusion shares the same Fiesta platform on which the Ikon is also built and the three have an identical wheelbase.The premise of Fusion?s engineering is that it should be well in tune with the demands of city driving. Tailored blanks with high-strength steels have been used in the body structure to create stiff mounting points for the chassis systems.

We had first seen the Duratec family of engines on the Mondeo and what a scorcher that had turned out to be. Developed in conjunction with Mazda, this 1596cc engine will be put together at HM?s Pithampur plant where the Ikon engines are also made. This 4-cylinder all aluminium engine is naturally aspirated and develops maximum power of 100PS at 6500rpm and 143NM of torque at 3400rpm. This more modern engine has been adopted in keeping with the positioning of the Fusion and features throttle-by-wire technology.The engine breathes through 16 valves (intake being 30.1mm and exhaust 24.1mm) which are controlled by belt driven double overhead camshafts.

PERFORMANCE: Not as great as could have been hoped for.Here are some Road Test Figures:- The car gets to a 100kmph in 12.74s and to 150kmph in 33.39s. Quarter mile comes up in 18.20s while it gets to the one kilometre mark in 33.88s. Top speed though is a respectable 174kmph which it gets to in fourth gear. The car is definitely much quicker than its sibling though.(Ikon)

On-road performance is good and given its top end grunt, it is as easy to drive on the highway. But one has to keep shifting to keep it in the power band. If the revs fall below the 2000rpm mark, specially in the higher gears then you are in trouble. Some slick shifting allows you to derive the best from this otherwise good performer

Fusion- has loads of space-much better than the other C-Segement competitors.But the quality of interiors are very cheap for a car that costly.I gues Ford should see what class interiors Honda offers on the City!

Fuel Efficiency: Ford's UAV would dissapoint those looking for economy. It wouldnt return more than 9 kmpl. With no Diesel option it may be difficult to sell the Fusion to the economy concsious Indians

Fusion offers much what the Hyundai Getz has to offer-Class Leading Space in a hatchback shape,Great Performance .Plus it's MINI-SUV Shape may appeal to some people! But at close to 7 Lacs it is too expensive-leave alone the Getz selling at 4.75-5Lax being overrpiced