FORD 24-7 WAGON, 2000
You have to feel for the car company futurologists (car designers) who have to produce eye-catching glimpses of the future (concept cars) at motor shows where their employers don’t have any fresh production tat to show off.
Some concept cars are a thinly veiled preview of an upcoming car – they’re so long in development that 12 months before a car is officially launched you can lop off the wing mirrors, add a set of 24-inch shiny wheels and Bob’s your uncle. But some concept cars are an attempt to get ahead of the zeitgeist, to create a design buzz around a brand and show that they’re ready to shape the future.
The future can’t have been looking too bright back when the Detroit show happened in 2000 (or the present, what with cars like the Hummer H2 and Lexus SC making their debuts), with Ford presenting this 24-7 Wagon as part of a trio of Focus-based concepts heralding a future filled with same-y platform-sharing cars. There was a pickup, a coupe and this SUV/estate crossover attempt.
Thinking it looks a bit bland? Well, that was kind of the point, actually – Ford said at the time that one of the trends in the future would be an emphasis on the connectivity of a car and its tech performance, that the exterior would become less of a factor for buyers. Well, it got that massively wrong, at any rate. If nothing else, you still want to be able to find your car in a car park, at least until the things drive themselves and can find you.
The tech was the exciting part, like the “lipstick camera” side mirrors that are popping up everywhere 20 years later. The interior stuff – access to your emails, satnav, weather updates and suchlike – as well as many of the car’s functions, were also controlled by voice activation. Even the dashboard driving display could be changed with a simple bark of the voice. Ford was proud that its speech recognition not only understood six different languages (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese), but could cope with multiple dialects and accents. Hoots mon.
Sadly there’s never even been a whisper of the 24-7 Wagon concept going into production. If only the critics had been a little more visionary back in 2000. Could it be a coincidence that a mere two years later the Werthers Original-onwheels Fusion went on sale? A car so dull its acceleration figures were measured in sleeps. The Fusion was also a crossover, but mainly straddled that vague plane between life and death. But hey Ford, if you fancied making the 24-7 Wagon today, we might be interested, just lose the emails. We don’t need any more access to those.