Car Torque: Ford joint venture breaks down
PLUS ProDrive moves on | Volt gets five-star safety rating | Tomtom talent touches BMW | World car shook up FPV
PLUS ProDrive moves on | Volt gets five-star safety rating | Tomtom talent touches BMW | World car shook up FPV
FPV joint venture breaks down
There isn’t as much of a business case in being an automotive icon as there once was. Ford Australia has taken the first step toward taking 100% ownership of the Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV) operation. Since 2003, the high-performance Falcon models have been developed and built by a joint venture between Ford (49%) and Prodrive (51%). The entire FPV operation will move to Ford’s Geelong and Campbellfield facilities in Melbourne from the end of 2012. In a joint statement, the two companies said they had reviewed the FPV business and concluded the current situation was unsustainable in the long term.
ProDrive out of performance road cars
Prodrive, a British motorsport and engineering specialist, has announced that it will exit the performance road car business when the FPV deal is completed. While shifting FPV engine manufacture to Geelong and vehicle assembly to Campbellfield will offset some of Ford’s previous announced redundancies at those sites, the change means 32 FPV employees will become redundant at the end of the year. Ford says there will be no change with the way customers interact with the FPV brand, although there will surely be changes in the way FPV vehicles are developed in future.
World car shook up FPV
The road ahead has been looking rocky for FPV ever since the Blue Oval put its One Ford “world car” design philosophy into effect. With Ford producing high-quality, high-performance models for global consumption such as the Focus ST, it has made no sense for FPV to re-engineer European models under its own brand. That just leaves the Australian-built Falcon to use as a base – a car that is itself on borrowed time under One Ford. Here’s a last blast from the old regime though: contrary to some previous press reports, the GT RSpec – billed as the fastest FPV ever built – will be sold in New Zealand. Eleven examples have been bought by FPV dealers.
Volt gets five-star safety rating
The General Motors Volt extended-range electric car, which will be sold in Australasia as a Holden from November, has been awarded a five-star crash rating from the Australian New Car Assessment Program. Aside from its crash safety performance, the Volt will come with a range of active safety features including lane departure warning and forward collision alert. Volt’s drive wheels are entirely powered by electricity but the vehicle also has a petrol engine that acts as a generator for the electric motor when charge is depleted. Holden claims Volt has a range equivalent to a conventional petrol-powered vehicle. More importantly, it’s free of so-called electric-car “range anxiety” because drivers can use every bit of battery power available, safe in the knowledge that the petrol generator will take over when required.
Tomtom talent touches BMW
Let’s not call it an admission of failure but BMW’s decision to offer integration with TomTom satellite-navigation devices on some of its 1 Series, 3 Series, X1 and X3 models in Europe, does suggest some understanding that specialist makers like TomTom are progressing very fast indeed with the technology.
The five-inch touchscreen TomTom devices mount on a dashboard dock in the approved BMW models and integrate with the carmaker’s entertainment system. The TomTom units feature traffic-beating technology such as HD Traffic, which identifies congestion in real-time and helps the driver navigate around it.