MAHINDRA-FORD

Is how it started with the Escort, and ended before Ford’s XUV700 appeared

FORD’S INDIA STORY DATES BACK TO 1926 when they started assembling the Model A, going on until 1953 when nationalisation forced MNCs across the board, Coca-Cola being another prominent name, to exit the country. Liberalisation in the ’90s heralded a new dawn and Ford were among the first car manufacturers to arrive along with Peugeot (with PAL), GM (with the Opel badge), Mitsubishi (with HM), Honda and Daewoo. Mahindra Ford India Ltd was a 50:50 JV and the first, and only, car was the Escort launched in 1996. In 1999 Ford secured FIPB approval to raise its stake in the JV and plans were firmed up for a greenfield facility in Chennai with Mahindra, but the latter’s board decided, wisely as it would pan out, to instead invest the money in their own car manufacturing journey leading to the birth of the Scorpio.

The wheel turned a full circle exactly twenty years later when the duo announced a new JV, Mahindra this time in the driver’s seat with a 51 per cent stake. The partnership started with the facelifted EcoSport using Mahindra’s 1.2-litre turbo-petrol engine (from the XUV300) and then Ford would get both the XUV700 as well as Mahindra’s upcoming Creta-fighting XUV400. Extensive partnerships on electric vehicles was also part of the remit and things were on the fast-track, Pininfarina even completing the design of the top hat of Ford’s XUV700 derivative (insiders claim it would have turned more heads than the Mahindra and even sport better dynamics in keeping with Ford’s DNA) but at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2021 the JV was called off. For a further nine months Ford India stuttered, looking for partners or buyers for its operations before finally winding up. And thus, how it started is how it ended.