Fancy Ford faces uphill battle against classy German rivals
BACK in my day, if a mate’s dad was tooling around in a Ford Ghia, he’d hit the big time.
He probably smoked cigars and likely had an eight-track player with The Carpenters Greatest Hits in it. Maybe a bit of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Sumptuous velour upholstery, maybe a contrasting vinyl roof and tinted windows, plus lots of chrome detailing marked out the Ford Ghia as the range -topping look-at-me status symbol of the day.
The Ghia badge was a marketing success of its time.
But today, Ford’s luxo sub-brand is the Vignale, a specification which sits above the one-time trim leader, Titanium X.
As a fan of the film Withnail & I, this is a troubling word because every time I see it I can’t help pronounce it Vignail.
But it works badly both ways for me because, pronounced correctly – Vinyarlay – I just imagine a sort of olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing, the likes of which you might drizzle over your mozzarella and beef tomato salad.
French or Vignale dressing, sir? So when the Kuga salad dressing turned up at my house the other week, I couldn’t help but feel both a pang of hunger and a need to watch said film again, both at the same time.
I resisted on both counts and went for a drive, sharpish.
Disappointingly, there’s absolutely no brushed Dralon upholstery inside the Kuga Vignale. There’s no vinyl roof and, despite looking for a good 10 minutes, no eight-track cassette player or chrome plated window winders.
Instead, the cabin of the Kuga Vignale is bedecked in quilted white leather. This is not a car for vegans, for sure.
But as a committed carnivore, I’m down with it. Particularly the smell. As soon as you open the door, your olfactory senses are pummelled into a leathery submission like you’ve been subjected to a freshly opened, hidescented Magic Tree.
The front seats are deeply padded and electrically adjustable in many planes (10, in fact). The rear seats are a little less sumptuous but children (let’s face it, they’re the most likely rear seat occupants) know no better and as they’re not paying, they can sod off.
There are a few tricks offered as standard such as foot-swiped rear door opening, self parking, a reasonably high-quality Sony audio infotainment system and multi-colour ambient interior lighting. You can also opt for an electronically opened panoramic glass roof (£900) or a heated steering wheel (£125).
In this crowded luxury crossover SUV market, the Vignale’s biggest hard-sell is the standard provision of the sort of options rivals charge more for. Stuff like bi-xenon lights, rear view cameras, parking sensors and rain sensing wipers.
The Kuga’s stiff chassis and well matched springs and dampers allow a firm but poised ride – perhaps not quite so car-like as Seat’s Ateca or VW’s Tiguan but pretty damned close.
It loses against its rivals in NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) with the two-litre TDCi engine being more intrusively vocal when worked hard and the Powershift auto box being a bit hunty and a tad indecisive, particularly when treated to a lot of throttle opening.
And in 30-plus-grand crossover SUV land, there are a lot of badges hunting for your business.
Cars like Audi’s Q3 or BMW’s X1, to name but two.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this posh AWD Ford, don’t get me wrong.
But I get the feeling that the sort of customer who would be bothered by trivia like status and the visible perception of success would plump for a German badge first.
Marketing. It’s a funny old business.