Ford will manufacture two new families of engines in India, code-named Panther and Dragon, which will power the new Endeavour and the Figo/Figo Aspire models, apart from Ford’s upcoming, India-specific MPV. Ford will also shoehorn these made-in-India engines in other global vehicles, and it is expected that 270,000 vehicles will be churned out globally; all powered by Panther and Dragon engines.
While Panther, believed to be a 2.2-litre diesel engine, will grace the new Endeavour SUV’s engine bay, the Dragon will be a 1.2-litre petrol engine which will replace the current petrol engine of similar capacity in the Figo hatchback (read review here) and the Figo Aspire compact sedan (read review here).
Currently, the new Endeavour is powered by a 2.5-litre diesel engine with the manual transmission and a 3-litre diesel engine with the automatic transmission (read our review here). It is expected that the Panther will replace the former. The upgrades of both these cars will come with the new engine in 2017.
As for the upcoming MPV, it’s confirmed to be powered by the 2.2-litre Panther diesel engine and will compete with the new Toyota Innova. Further details are scarce, and a launch is still sometime away, possibly in 2017. Ford has invested over $2 billion in India to set up two plants, one each in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Together, these plants could make 610,000 engines and 440,000 passenger vehicles annually.
Source : livemint