Ford Motor Company unveiled the latest additions to its vehicle lineup in the Middle East bearing remarkable improvements in quality, safety and technology. The long anticipated all-new 2009 F-150 - America's best-selling truck for the past three decades, and the “kinetic design” Ford Fiesta compact car were introduced to the Middle Eastern media in a kaleidoscope of lights. Launching the new models, Waldo Galan in Fujairah, Ford Middle East's managing director, said the new vehicles “reinforce Ford's achievements in quality, safety, innovation as well as environmentally friendly technologies - areas that will continue to be the focus for the automaker moving forward.” “Across the globe, Ford is committed to delivering products that people want, with the class-leading, quality, fuel economy, safety and smart features that our customers truly value,” he pointed out. “We have been completely focused on these areas, and today, we are truly excited because our customers are actually able to touch upon these points in the products that we offer across our dealerships in the Middle East,” Galan said effusively. The Ford F-150 and Fiesta are the latest models to follow the host of new nameplates introduced lately in the Middle East, such as the all-new Ford Flex, the 7-passenger full-size crossover and bigger brother of the Edge, the new Ford Fusion, Ford's contender in the competitive mid-size segment next to its European counterpart, the all-new Mondeo that debuted with its latest kinetic design also featured on the newly refreshed Focus. The new nameplate launches also are reflected across the Lincoln and Mercury brands with the all-new Mercury Mariner compact SUV, as well as the latest Lincoln flagship, the all-new MKS full-size sedan. Hussein Murad, Ford Middle East's director of Sales, said: “The aggressive product drive is on, full speed, and we have even more exciting products just around the corner, such as the all new 2010 Mustang, the all-new 2010 Taurus, the all-new Mercury Milan and of course the stylish full-size crossover from Lincoln, the MKT.” “These products not only manifest Ford's primary brand four main pillars of quality, safety, smart and green, but they also convey a very important message to customers in the Middle East. Today, the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands offer the most diversified product lineup ever, with a product for each customer, no matter what are his or her needs,” he added. Specifically, the Ford brand features the richest passenger car lineup with seven models, almost all of which would be completely refreshed by mid-2009. The same development is evident on the utility vehicle lineup, where with the addition of the Flex, Ford offers seven unique models, each one delivering on a specific customer need. The Lincoln and Mercury brands would feature seven and six products respectively in 2009, marking an unprecedented choice of vehicles from each segment. Murad noted that “Ford today has a success story in the Middle East. Our sales are up by nearly 30 percent year to date, and we are confident we will close the year with the same rate, thanks to increased customer preference of our products. This substantial growth is driven by our wide selection of new, progressive and innovative products that offer outstanding value and set the benchmark in their categories.” Over the years, Ford has made significant and consistent strides to improve quality through a renewed commitment that touches every aspect of the vehicle process - from design to manufacturing to product launch. The cumulative effect of these disciplined, global quality standards earned Ford a record-breaking year, with 102 accolades for quality in 2007, and the company is well on the way to complete an outstanding 2008. Combining customer feedback with advanced technologies has allowed Ford to further boost initial quality and longer-term reliability, resulting in dramatically improved owner satisfaction. According to research carried by RDA Group (April 2008), Ford is in a statistical dead heat with Toyota & Honda in initial quality. The quarterly study measures customer feedback from drivers of Ford vehicles as well as competitive makes and models and is commissioned by Ford. Ford vehicles outperformed the industry average according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Quality Study. Continuing its five-year upward trend, Ford improved by eight points over last year's study, surpassing the industry's seven-point improvement and received 10 quality honors. Moreover, Ford has a long history of safety leadership. The company led the shift to multiple-deployment air bags in the 1990s and introduced the most unique stability control system in the world in the early 2000s. Currently, Ford is building on its safety leadership by increasingly addressing driver behavior and broadening its efforts from crash protection to “active” collision-avoidance technologies, and this will be manifested across the new models coming to the Middle East as early as first quarter next year. Ford Motor Company today is the leader in crash safety with the most 5-star recognitions and Top Safety Picks from both NHTSA and the IIHS, aggressively pushing into the new frontier of active safety with innovations such as Roll Stability Control, Collision Warning with Brake Support, and addressing the often-overlooked area of driver behavior. Just recently, Ford moved past Honda for the leading number of “Top Safety Pick” crash-test safety ratings when the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced that 2009 Ford Flex, Fusion and Lincoln MKS earned the top honors. Ford has received 16 Top Safety Picks, an industry record. Ford is focused on making fuel economy a reason to purchase its products. Today, no large front-wheel-drive crossover delivers better fuel economy than Flex. And the Ford Fusion's I4 engine is classified as a zero emission vehicle in California. The new F-150 features an impressive power train lineup, including an all-new 6-speed transmission, which helps deliver an average of 1.5 mpg increase across the entire lineup. The company uses various technologies to help reduce fuel consumption as well as emissions, including increased usage of our 6-speed transmissions, Electric Power Assisted Steering, and aerodynamic improvements. This in addition to weight reductions through increased use of high strength steels and aluminum, use of a unibody platform versus body-on-frame and other weight reductions from lighter weight materials and downsized engines (V-6 versus V-8). The most innovative engine technology Ford intends to bring to the Middle East next year is EcoBoost, an environmentally friendly engine that provides superior power and torque with improved fuel economy and fewer emissions - the fuel-efficiency of a V-6 with the performance of a V-8. With the latest technological innovations, Ford undoubtedly seeks to empower, not overpower the driver.
