Ford Fights Back With Fiesta

Globally, Ford has a four-point plan to kick its struggling business back to better health. It revolves around restructuring the company to make size more closely match demand, accelerating the pace of new product launches to deliver the right cars at the right time, maintaining the funding to deliver the above, and working globally as a team - what uber-boss Alan Mulally calls ONE Ford.

Ford of Europe is the bit of ONE Ford that's working best at the moment, with record sales and strong, profitable growth. In 2008 they promise more than 20 individual new vehicles and derivatives - where the most they've ever delivered in a year before this is 14.

By the end of this year, every model in Ford's European car range will have been refreshed or renewed in the three years since the start of 2006. So the newness of the range gives Ford the kind of sparkly look (in Europe at least) that says there's hope for the Blue Oval yet.

And while the bigger cars are doing okay, small ones are Ford's biggest news - especially in Geneva, with the world debut of the all-new Fiesta, which has evolved with quite a lot of the good stuff intact from the various Verve Concepts that have appeared at shows in Frankfurt, China and Detroit since last September.

It's meant to be that rarest of all beasts, the global product, and this one is offered up as "a world standard for small car quality, design and comfort in a car that is as exciting to drive as it is to look at."

Which is promising, because it's really pretty good to look at, representing Ford's "kinetic design" in a five-door family hatch and a neat little three-door that clearly evolved from the Verve concepts - including elements of the interior, with its center-dash architecture inspired by modern cell-phone design and functionality.

It promises to be lighter but stronger, with a safety package including driver's knee airbag; and it promises "a host of big-car features" like capless refueling and keyless entry.

Its green credentials include five fuel-efficient gasoline and diesel engines, and there will be the option of a version delivering less than 100 g/km CO2 emissions - expanding Ford's ECOnetic ultra-low CO2 range. European production starts in the fall, and the all-new Fiesta will roll out across Asia and the Americas between then and 2010.

Alongside it they showed the first final versions of the new Kuga, the all-wheel-drive crossover previewed in Frankfurt and aimed at a small but clearly profitable niche market.

Also making its debut in Geneva, the new Focus Coupe-Cabriolet adds yet another shape to the Focus range - and one more car to add substance to Ford's European ray of hope.