Ford said it used ‘undercover agents’ to develop its new compact MPV, the B-Max.
Stationed around shopping centres and schools, they secretly watched owners strapping in children and loading up the things they had bought. They then fed the information they had gathered to a UK-based innovation team tasked with making the B-Max the most practical small car on the market.
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The solution the team came up with was a car with no central pillars between the front and rear doors, making it much easier for people to get in and out. The central pillars are integrated into the hinged front doors and sliding rear doors so that when they are closed they form a solid, safe structure.
Ford said the B-Max is more rigid than the Fiesta on which it is based, and is confident of a maximum five-star Euro-NCAP safety rating when the car is tested in November.
The B-Max replaces the European Fusion [a higher-riding, hatchback version of the previous generation Fiesta, not the North American sedan] in Ford’s line-up but is not a direct substitute, said the company’s UK managing director, Mark Ovenden.
“The B-Max is an excellent example of how we can react to the changing needs of customers. It’s a more emotionally engaging car than the Fusion. I will admit that the Fusion could have been better in terms of style but it had a 1% market share, and most of our competitors would die for volumes like that. And it was phenomenally successful in Russia.
“The wow factor with the B-Max is the door system. But it is also stylish, economical, luxurious and technologically advanced. People are making lifestyle choices to trade down to smaller cars and the B-Max is at the premium end of the small car sector.”
It is available with six engines, including 100PS and 120PS versions of the three-cylinder 1.0-litre turbocharged Ecoboost petrol unit which is already mopping up 30% of Focus sales just a few months after launch, and a new 1.5-litre turbodiesel. Equipped with the auto-start-stop as standard, the 120PS I3 variant achieves class-leading CO2 emissions of 114g/km and fuel consumption of 57.7mpg – 15% lower than the closest petrol competitor. Other petrol engine options include the 90PS 1.4-litre Duratec, and the 105PS 1.6-litre Duratec engine paired with the PowerShift six-speed dual clutch automatic transmission.
The two Duratorq TDCi diesel engines are the 95PS 1.6-litre engine (104g/km and 70.6mpg) and the 75PS 1.5-litre diesel, closely derived from the 1.6-litre engine with CO2 emissions of 109g/km and fuel consumption of 68.9mpg.
The B-Max is the first mainstream European Ford to offer Sync, the company’s voice-activated connectivity system which automatically summons help from the emergency services after an accident or breakdown. It also offers an automatic emergency braking system to prevent low-speed nose-to-tail collisions in traffic.
It goes on sale in October. In the UK, there is an entry-level Studio model at GBP12.995, while the mid-range Zetec versions which are expected to account for six out of 10 sales start at GBP15,600.
