Ford presents new Aspire to brighten up the festive season
It is the festive season, which means lots of new cars in the market. But if there’s one segment where action is always on, it is the very popular compact sedan segment. Earlier this year Honda launched the new Amaze and the car has been breaking sales records while the Maruti Dzire just crossed the 3- lakh sales mark, the fastest to do so. Aiming to get a good share of that pie is Ford with its new Aspire which has just been launched starting at Rs 5.55 lakh. It is cheaper than before but more feature rich. Such is the competition that every player has to provide absolute value for money products in this segment and the American car maker has tried to do exactly that with this updated Aspire. Proportions work very well for the Aspire, and that’s a big pull in this segment. Designing a sedan while keeping it shorter than 4-meters in length is a huge challenge but Ford has mastered the art from day one with this car. Also there are a lot of new likeable bits on this update and these include a new front grille with chrome surround, new blacked-out headlamps and redesigned fog lamps that also get chrome around them. On the profile the Aspire now gets one size bigger 15-inch alloys while on the rear the quirky new tail lamp design and the chrome bar add a dash of sportiness. The biggest change inside the new Aspire is the addition of the famed Sync 3 infotainment system from Ford. It’s responsive and feels of high quality. It is compatible with Apple car play and Android Auto apart from providing rear camera display. This Sync system also offers Emergency Assistance that automatically calls emer- gency services from a paired phone in case of an accident. This helps Ford takes the lead above others when it comes to infotainment. The Aspire also gets automatic climate control, push button start, rain-sensing wipers and automatic headlamps which make the car more premium. 2 backlit USB ports and good storage options provide a lot of practicality. The second row is spacious but can provide some more ergonomics. Yes there’s a centre arm rest but what’s missing are door pockets, charging socket and rear AC vents. However Ford says the AC is powerful enough take care of both rows with ease. Apart from the design and feature updates the big change on the Aspire facelift is the introduction of a new 3-cylinder Petrol engine and a 5-speed manual transmission. The 96 PS 120 Nm engine is refined and caters well to the demands of the city traffic. In low and mid range the system performs well and in case you want more performance there’s always the 1.5 liter 123 PS automatic petrol option. Ford says manual transmission is almost 15% lighter and helps improve fuel economy while reducing NVH. And that is explained by a silent cabin and claimed mileage of 20.4 kmpl on this Petrol engine. On the other hand 100 PS peak power, 215 Nm of torque and fuel economy of 26.1 Kmpl are some positive attributes of the much popular 1.5 litre diesel. The bigger sized wheels have added to the drive experience on the new Aspire. You generally feel more confident as the tyres are able to provide better grip on the road sur- face. High speed stability is impressive too and the car does not seem to be floating around while doing its maneuvers. The suspension performs a good job of taking on the bad patches of the road as we discovered on this drive of our on the outskirts of Udaipur. In fact when it comes to ride comfort on the second row the Aspire has been amongst the best in the segment and continues to be with this facelift. The Aspire has always been a strong underdog in this very popular segment with most things working for it. It goes even better with this facelift where if offers more for less. At Rs 8.14 lakh even the fully loaded top diesel variant seems good value for money as it is much cheaper than rivals. And the addition of the new petrol engine has made this an even better urban car. Ford has been constantly trying to take care of the other worry which is the cost of ownership. The company is promising lowest service costs on the sedan at just 38 paise per kilometer for petrol and 46 paise per kilometer for diesel over first 1 lakh kilometers. And that will give you a lot of confidence as a Ford Aspire owner. Shams Naqvi is an anchor/ producer for the News X motor show Living Cars