Ford has taken the wraps off a car which they will show at Frankfurt, and which potential buyers would throw their wallets at if they could get on thhe waiting list, writes Brian Byrne from Berlin.
But the stunning Evos Concept will never be built as a production car, the company claims.
Looking as if it came out of a Maserati or Lamborghini showroom, and with tilts towards Aston Martin looks, the car is only a showcase for the next evolution of Ford's 'Kinetic' design language.
"It takes Kinetic Design in a more sophisticated direction," Martin Smith, Ford's executive design director, told IC&T at yesterday's exclusive reveal of the car. "It has a more premium feel for customers, and is in some ways a simplification of the design elements. But it is unmistakably a Ford."
The Evos is not built on any platform which Ford currently uses, but is a bespoke vehicle on the equivalent of a Focus wagon length with the width of a Mondeo. That gives the muscular fastback 4-seater a strong stance and a distinctive silhouette which just begs to be rolled out of a showroom.
"It is a car with a message," says Smith, "and you will see elements of this message on production cars from as soon as four months' time."
The Evos Concept envisages a plug-in hybrid powertrain with EV capability and the ability to communicate with all the owner's lifetyle elements through the internet 'cloud'.
Ford's designers and marketeers began working on the Evos Concept about a year ago, with Frankfurt to the forefront of their minds. Among the details of what is internally known as 'Kinetic 2.0' is a move of the current lower large grille to become the primary grille.
Ford's emphasis on this new stage of the design language being a more premium experience doesn't mean that it intends to follow other mass-market brands into offering more premium level cars, but rather to 'deliver to Ford mainstream customers a visually premium experience'.
There was a lot of techno-speak at the reveal about how the Evos could 'connect' with the daily life needs of its owner, even to managing his or her alarm clock in the morning depending on whether co-workers were planning to be late.
And we took on board the fact that, like the Iosis Concept which flagged the Kinetic Design 1.0, we won't see the car as shown in any Ford dealership.
But to that there is just one answer.
'Build it, and they will buy.'
Maybe that's what they're just hoping to hear. Loudly enough and often enough to just put an engine in it and let it out.
