Remember the Ford SAV (Sport Activity Vehicle) concept from Geneva (AW, March 14)? That car was meant to give you a peek at Ford of Europe’s future design direction. Ford will give us another look at that direction when it shows the sleek iosis coupe at Frankfurt. Ford says iosis embodies all the elements of the future design of European Fords. Not all of the design themes will be taken up on every product, but there are a number of core elements that will feature strongly in coming years.



“iosis is more than just a show car, it is sending a message about how Ford of Europe’s future design will be redefined,” says Martin Smith, Ford of Europe’s Executive Design Director, the man who has been given the task of developing the next-generation of vehicles for Ford of Europe. “The forms will be more distinctive and emotional, more athletic and muscular,” explained Smith. “The iosis has great stance, it is powerful, assertive and confident, and it just cries out to be driven.” says Smith.

Iosis’ platform is the same concept-only architecture Ford used on the SAV in Geneva.

“iosis is more than just a show car, it is sending a message about how Ford of Europe’s future design will be redefined,” says Martin Smith, Ford of Europe’s Executive Design Director, the man who has been given the task of developing the next-generation of vehicles for Ford of Europe

A concept car called Iosis will preview the next-generation Ford Mondeo at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Although this show car is a four-door, four-seat saloon, it will have a more coupe-like rear end and side profile than the current Mondeo, and it will give a taste for the final production car's styling, though Ford stresses that "it is not the precursor to a production model, rather an indicator of future trends."


Every car design project has to have a keyword and theme these days, and Ford's is "kinetic." Design director Martin Smith explains: "Ford products are acknowledged for their class-leading driving dynamics; our objective, quite simply, is to express this leadership in our design. We are calling this new language Ford 'kinetic' design, because we believe it expresses energy in motion." Smith has been tasked with overseeing the design of all of Ford's next-generation vehicles; he says that "the forms will be more distinctive and emotional, more athletic and muscular. Equally, we have to combine safety and dynamic performance and still keep the brand identity. The Iosis has great stance, it is powerful, assertive and confident, and it just cries out to be driven. That's kinetic design - energy in motion."

Key features of the Iosis which typify this approach include its 'inverse trapezoidal' air intake below the front grille, a prominent wheel arch lip, small kinks in the C-pillar's outline which are reflected in the rocker panel, headlamps, bonnet profile and A-pillar, and the "cat's eye" taillights.

The Iosis also incorporates angled, pivoting doors, made from lightweight carbonfibre, which give wide-opening apertures to the cabin by opening upwards and outwards, door-mounted and interior cameras which replace rear-view mirrors and an orange-themed cabin finished in materials including wipe-clean neoprene and a kinky-sounding leather-rubber compound. Its steering wheel is solid aluminium, covered with orange leather, and it has a starter button rather than a key-ignition, a LCD screen, an electronic parking brake and sequential-shift gearbox; its central instrument stack has docking points for memory sticks which can store driver data. The seats are constructed around visible ribcage-like frames of silver carbonfibre and aluminium, and the upholstery is finished in charcoal/graphite-coloured leather with a metallic effect. Of course, not all these features will make it into the production Mondeo - least of all the trick doors - but the Iosis clearly shows that Ford plans to thoroughly modernise the Mondeo range which, although mainstream and high-volume, will nonetheless be high-tech, well-equipped and state-of-the art in its styling.

Ford iosis concept

Ford says its iosis concept unveils the new design direction for Ford of Europe-and it's not a bad direction to be headed. Building on the style of the Ford SAV Concept shown at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year, iosis demonstrates Ford's "kinetic design" philosophy, also known as "energy in motion." We're not sure what all that mumbo jumbo means, but the bottom line is Ford designers are now free to draw up a wide variety of wrappers for shared vehicle architectures.

Ford of Europe has unveiled a new concept car called the 2007 Iosis X at the 2006 Paris Motor Show. "We're calling this car iosis X as a deliberate link to our 'kinetic design' concept car lineage started last year," said Martin Smith, Ford of Europe's Executive Design Director. "The link is not just in the name – there's a strong visual relationship between the two cars, and the 'X' signals the new vehicle's crossover capabilities."

Ford says the Iosis X is not intended to be representative of this future production model. Instead, it "sets out to explore the ways in which Ford's kinetic design form language and detailing can be applied to a niche vehicle in a rugged and exciting way." The original Iosis concept foreshadowed the new Ford Mondeo.

"Customers will be able to get a feel for the design direction our production model will take, and when we do reveal that model next year the relationship between it and the iosis X will be immediately apparent," Smith explained.

"The iosisConcept has been a great ambassador for Ford design," said Smith, adding "the reception it received from the public and the media gave us the confidence to stretch our design team even further for future Ford vehicles."

"What iosis X does do is to move our customers' understanding of our new design language on further," Smith concluded. "It demonstrates that 'kinetic design' is becoming a consistent and enduring reality in Ford's future and it assures them that when Ford enters this particular sector of the market, it will be with an individual and dynamic product that shares much of the excitement of this Concept."

"One of the aspects people recognised and liked about the original iosis was the considered complexity of the forms," observed Stefan Lamm, Ford of Europe’s chief exterior designer, before explaining that "we wanted to explore and demonstrate how kinetic design could work on a high packaged body. This was one of the challenges for us, to maintain this dramatic, emotional design language on a car like iosis X."

"This vehicle shows how we can apply kinetic design principles to a different type of vehicle," said Martin Smith. "We’ve taken all the key themes and graphic elements first seen on iosis and morphed them into a very sporty crossover with the footprint of a compact C-segment car."

"The dominant lower inverted trapezoidal grille is now a really strong brand element," commented Lamm.

"Rather than see the pedestrian protection legislation as an inhibitor to the design philosophy, we now treat it as a positive design attribute," said Smith. "To accommodate the required volume in the front of the vehicle we have not only chamfered the corners back, but we have included a deep offset from the top of the hood to the front wings, creating a distinctive shoulder that runs along the side of the car to the rear."

"When the car is viewed from three-quarters, either front or rear, the last visual points you should see are the wheels, and that’s just the case with iosis X," asserts Lamm. "I especially like looking at the car from the rear three-quarters view because that emphasises the undercut which develops in a different direction to the original iosis, with a stronger shadow at the rear gradually fading out to the front."

"It needs to be longer at the rear otherwise the roof line would stop abruptly and the car would look quite truncated," explained Lamm.

"Usually there is some dark plastic or painted, grained plastic in the rocker area," Lamm explained. "We decided to move in a different direction and designed 'skid plates' as separate elements on the car that aren’t integrated into the shape but floating on the side panels. These were inspired by the aerodynamic foils we see on the side of a Formula One car."

"Too many vehicles feature elements that look as if they’re attached to the surface or are poking through apertures that have been cut into the body work," clamed Lamm. "That’s not the case with iosis X. The lamps appear to be formed as one with the surface, which gives a terrific 3-D effect and, if you look at the rear lights, you can see obvious links to the new S-MAX and Galaxy."

"Most products of this type tend to be modern interpretations of moss green or greys. We thought it would be fun to do iosis X in a sheer white. That's appropriate for us as we have a history of using white to good effect - think of the GT40s and rallying Escorts – and the current Fiesta ST is very popular in white with blue racing stripes," Smith said.

"It’s not a pure white, because that would make the car look pretty heavy," explained Lamm. "The paint we have created features a blue 'flip' effect that changes tone with light and helps describe the forms and shapes in the car."

"We started with all of the positive elements from the original iosis project, and evolved these to deliver even more visual interest and drama that you might not expect from a crossover," Vidakovic explained.

"Because this is a rugged crossover rather than a four-door coupé, we needed to make different interior design decisions," Vidakovic said. "At the front, you have the usual functional elements you need to control a car, but when you go rearwards we introduce elements more appropriate to this type of vehicle such as lighting and storage features."

"We’ve bought trapezoidal elements and themes into the interior to link with the exterior, whilst the interior sheet metal and piano white surfaces are also links with the bodywork to create a harmonious entity," concluded Vidakovic.

"As our intention with iosis X is to stretch Ford's new design language further and introduce the next phase of execution and implementation, we wanted to echo this in the colour and material design strategy," explains Ruth Pauli, Chief Designer for Colour and Trim. "This means a new emphasis on quality and detailing, touch and surface design."

"If you look into tunnels of ice you see silvers and powdery whites and that’s reflected in iosis X exterior colours," Pauli notes. "This creates a technical, powder snow look and is enhanced by silver stripes contrasting with the cold blue flip of the paint."

"We believe that, for the first time, we have developed design elements that echo the free spirit of skiing and what’s associated with it," Pauli concludes. "Skiing can be a really emotional experience – the kind of experience we want people to enjoy when they enter the iosis X environment!"