Ford Plans Upscale Vignale Treatment Across European Lineup

GENEVA – High-functioning lifestyle customers are being targeted by Ford as it plans to roll out a Vignale version of nearly every one of its European models in the coming years.

Bespoke design and interior fittings are being employed as part of these upscale renditions to prevent the Blue Oval from losing customers to premium brands.

The runaway success of its top-of-the-line Titanium trim has led the way in driving Ford’s designers to exploit a market ready and willing to pay for luxury touches in everyday transport.

Christopher Bird, Ford’s director-global color, materials, vehicle-personalization design and development, tells WardsAuto the extension of the range beyond Mondeo, announced at the auto show here to include the Kuga, S-Max and Edge, is just the beginning of the Vignale story.

“When we bring out the next new model, we will always bring out the Vignale version as well,” Bird says.

Vignale versions of future vehicles could be even more distinctive than today’s offerings, the executive says.

“We were lucky with the Mondeo that it had a very elegant shape that lends itself to Vignale very well, whereas with the Edge and Kuga we had to try a bit harder.

“So on the next product, and there will be one within the next two years, it will be much more unique and have more individualistic execution.”

Named after an Italian coachbuilder from Milan, Vignale is a design concept Ford sees as having a special appeal to urban lifestyles.

“Through design we want to put (out) something unique with a lot of lifestyle connections to furniture and fashion, for example,” Bird says. “We looked at what is happening today in Italian design and there is no doubt that there is a resurgence of combining some of the culture of handcrafted work with high technology and new processes.

“We’ve seen this at its best in the Milan Furniture Fair, just one of many lifestyle product shows that are becoming very popular.”

While Ford realizes it is unlikely to conquest buyers from established premium brands, it does expect the Vignale editions to stem the outward flow of customers who are ready to move up to a luxury model but would prefer to remain loyal to the Ford brand. That’s a customer base already being mined successfully with Ford’s Titanium models, but the addition of Vignale takes that to the next step.

“This has been such a success since we went into more emotional designs, such as we’ve seen in the S-Max and the Fiesta, we found customers were migrating from the idea as Ford as a value brand to something they are prepared to spend a bit more money on in the higher (trim) series,” Bird says.

“We have reached a point after the last four years where we are selling around 50% or more Titanium series on the bigger cars, and even Fiesta has sold a high percentage of high-level Titaniums,” he adds. “This made us ask ourselves, ‘Can we tap into the loyal Ford customers and take them one step further?’”

Buyers will have to be prepared to spend. In the U.K. a Mondeo Vignale will start at £29,045 ($41,306), compared with £20,495 ($29,147) for a base Mondeo.

Bird says Ford expects about 10% of Mondeo sales to go to the Vignale edition, which will be assembled in Valencia, Spain, alongside the standard cars but on slower-moving production lines, where more emphasis can be put on attention to detail.

“We are hoping (Vignale) will appeal to the female market,” Bird says. “We believe a Vignale customer will be someone who thinks more about an overall lifestyle, such as design and interiors, and are more social and urban in their living environments.

“We don’t want the cars to be too feminine, but we believe a lot of younger women will be gravitating to what we are doing with Vignale.”

So far the top-of-the-line treatment is purely a European initiative.

“Although looking at the Edge,” Bird says, “I can very easily imagine our female customers in Miami, New York or even Detroit driving about in (a Vignale version).”