Cars.com talks with the guy who designed the Flex, Peter Horbury, and asked him a few questions about the latest in Ford's ever-growing lineup of SUVs and crossovers.
Transcript
(soft rock music) Hi. This is managing editor, Patrick Olson from Cars.com. Today we're on the floor of the New York International Auto Show looking at the Ford Flex, Ford's newest crossover SUV.
The Flex is intended to compete with the Veracruz from Hyundai as well as Mazda's CX-9. We talked a little bit to Peter Horbury, the designer of the Flex. Well, the Flex represents I think the return of the woodie in a way. On the exterior design, as you can see that the window graphic is all one, this uninterrupted window graphic which allowed us to split the roof visually and put a new color on. So it's the return of the two-tone, which is I think a spectacular for the car. That's optional. The interior is full of ideas which you're used to in the more functional vehicles. The flip forward rear seats, for example, one touch of the button. On the inside there's a release of just a button on the pillar. The seats flip and fold away so you can get access to the third row, which has plenty of room for regular people. It's not for small kids. I mean, let's say nobody travels coach class in this vehicle. It's neither station wagon, nor is it SUV. It's what we called a crossover. But in the term crossover, there's a huge amount of differences that we can create. So the question is, how many SUVs and crossover does Ford need? They have the Edge, the Escape, the Expedition, the Explorer, the Freestyle, and now the Flex. We asked Horbury about that. Well, we think there's a place in the market for this type of vehicle. The Ford edge, for example, is a sporty car. There's only two rows. Very sporty, very modern profile. The Freestyle is known for its functionality very much so and has a car type look for it. This is unique. Well, this is in a production model Flex. We're looking forward to see the real thing to try out some of its features. Keep up with all the latest auto news at Cars.com and KickingTires. (soft rock music)
