India will build Ford's Figo

NEW DELHI: American carmaker, Ford Motor, plans to make India its manufacturing hub for its small car Figo it showcased on Wednesday for the Asia

Ford Figo New Ford Endeavour

Pacific market. Ford has targeted 2 lakh cars for India by 2010. After unveiling the Figo in Delhi, Ford’s president and CEO Alan Mulally said: “The global market is shifting towards smaller cars and India has a predominant advantage with a 70% market for compact cars. With Figo, we plan to get a larger chunk of the premium hatchback market, both in India and overseas.”

“Our plan for India involves accelerating development of fuel-efficient small cars. The small car market in India will double in the next one decade,” said Mr Mulally. He, however, ruled out plans to compete with Tata Motors’ Rs 1-lakh car the Nano and Maruti Suzuki’s M800 in the near future.

Figo, Italian for “cool” will be launched in the first quarter of 2010 and come in both petrol and diesel variants. Ford India has not announced any price but the car is expected to cost Rs 4 lakh and upwards for the base variant and will be pitted against Maruti Swift and Ritz, Fiat Punto, Chevrolet U-VA and Hyundai I20.