Ford Kuga Concept at Frankfurt
September 5, 2007 by Alborz Fallah
Although you are not suppose to see this, our Spanish friends misinterpreted the embargo date and now the whole world gets to see the new Ford Kuga ahead of its official debut and this month’s Frankfurt Motor Show.
Inspired by the iosis X Concept that was revealed at the 2006 Paris Motor Show, Ford has styled the 4WD crossover as part of the company’s new Kinetic Design. With the ability to switch between 4WD and FWD, the Kuga is designed completely by Ford Europe.
Ford is offering a hybrid engine in the Kuga, with the engine range expanding to include a four-cylinder petrol and diesel units. The Kuga concept only manages 136hp (102kW) from its 2.0-litre diesel engine, coupled to a 6-speed manual gearbox.
There are no plans to bring to Kuga to Australia in the near future, although with the growing market for compact crossover SUVs, the Kuga would sit nicely below the locally built Ford Territory.
Tags: Ford Kuga, Ford Kuga Concept
This would be a good replacement for the escape, seeing that its getting a bit long in the tooth. ford europe is on a bit of a role lately with the new mondeo, and kuga, and the concept of the feista.
Concept?? This is the sought of vehicle Ford should have on the Market now!! It would compete perfectly with other smaller Cross-Overs!!
woops, my mistake, I misread it!! This is rady to be released and not a concept as I thought. This would do well in Oz
Perhaps we should just admit defeat and start driving on the wrong side of the road. Then perhaps we may get some of these great looking offerings from the other 80% of the world instead of always being overlooked.
There certainly is room for this ford given the near 50% increase in midsize SUV sales in Oz over the past year.
Steve V…
Britain is RHD like us, we actually get quite a large selection of new vehicles from many different makes considering the size of our local auto industry.
If it made sense dollars wise Ford AUS may do it…maybe the figures/buisness case doesn’t stack up perhaps??
I’d love to see this on sale here to replace the class average escape too…let hope it may turn up…
Guys Ford AU have been silent about this car, so there is nothing say its not going to come here, just that there are no plans .. yet.. they need tomake sure it works in Europe first
Agree with Alec… this should be in the market now and not later! Ford has a great car here.
Looks a little Touareg-esque at the back?
Agree Matt, the car has that edge AU look Ford trying to adopt as design theme (eg: Mondeo, Fiesta, Focus) which when done correctly is real nice. Albeit whoever designed AU back in 1998 needs shooting as that car Ford has had trouble distancing itself from and this has reflected in sales. Considering Ford has some 10.8% of market share and Holden 13.8% (with Holden having vastly bigger range to select cars from) I feel Ford is in a good postion. Starting with the Orion, then this car should be fastracked – they better get the design principles correct as a lot is riding on Ford to get it correct after success of BA. That is why Holden Commodore has flourished as they took the hard decisions when Ford was scared shitless to redsign full on after stupid AU and that is why you have seen ridiculous model differentiation across the range. Ford better bring out this Kuga – it would be a nice feather in the cap and same time get rid of the ancient Ford Escape!
Touch of RAV4 side on too!
Four Kugas thanks ! Nice looking car inside and out !
looks like a rav4 so badly from the sides and the back of it is a volkswagon tourag crossed with a subaru tribeca and the front has hintings of the ex-crv honda LOL
Another Tonka toy.
absolutely a great time to lose the ford/mazda escape. i reckon i could safely say that against its competitors ford undoubtidly has the best looking vehicles across all classes. this kugra would simply seal that thought. yeah ford AUS need it now, how could it hurt? they alredy out source the escape so how much harder could it be to source something that is actually their own.
just curious, is this built on the focus platform?
Well said ANDREW M!!! This car would reinforce and strengthen Ford if it was priced right and Tom Gorman should get off his lazy chair and do something about Ford’s range of cars by adding this vehicle to the range NOW and NOT later as Ford needs to develop a better range which it has slowly done to compete with Toyota and Holden! FORD IS THE SLEEPER WHICH IS GETTING A GREAT ARESENAL OF VEHICLES TO SELL TO THE PUBLIC HERE
UGLY! But nice interior
I think it looks great… just change the rims they look stupid
I’m seeying captiva here. No realy I am.
For comparisons, search out the Nissan Qashqai or the Dualis as it’s known in Japan. The new Kuga is so similar it could be a clone with the exception of the front grille!
for those a little less enthusiastic with cars, i find the name Kuga has the possiblity of being confused with Kluger. Kind of like when nissan released the Murano, around the same time as the Holden Monaro.
good
cool
a1
ya
Awesome! If it drives anything like a Focus, then this would have to be the pick of an increasing bland bunch of compact SUV’s, ie. CRV, RAV4, Captiva etc…
Fantastic looking car, another success story from Ford, so many great cars to choose from this company now….
Sterring wheel looks the same as whats in the orion, But left hand drive.
This is a good car to take on the Holdenwoo Cruse.
Typically the likes of Ford and Holden are behind the ball again while vehicles like the RAV4 and Mazda CX-7 continue to fill the space where this little beauty sits.
Giants like Ford and Holden should be leading the industry instead of trailing behind and dragging the local offerings down to mediocre.. however, I applaud the vision here of a hybrid offering and can say for certain that one would be in my garage within a week if it were available here in Australia… and strangely enough whereas now I only have the single choice of a Holden Captiva (tin-can Hyundai Santa Fe rip off though it is) with a sensible sized diesel engine rather than a stupid 3 or 4 litre “mortgage-to-run” engined SUVs on offer today, a 2 litre diesel in this handsome SUV has me spoilt for choice.. hmmm… hybrid of diesel ?? I’d have either!
One thing is for sure, I’ll hold off replacing for a year after seeing this to see if any news comes of it’s arrival to Australia. Only other thing I need to know to close it for me is that a workable 7 seat variety will be one of the options (and I mean a third row that can be used by an adult !! Thank you Spain for getting confused with release dates.
I would buy one of these, if it came to Australia..