DEARBORN, Michigan — Ford is showing a minivan concept for "the coolest mom" at the 2009 New York Auto Show: the Transit Connect Family One, which it says can serve as a "base camp" for kids and a highly versatile yet stylish transport for families.
Under the design makeover is the durable, trucklike Transit Connect, which was designed by Ford of Europe for light-commercial-vehicle use and was named International Van of the Year in Europe when it debuted in 2003. Ford says this is its first attempt to reconfigure it for "personal use."
The Transit Connect Family One concept has a "vibrant color scheme," along with 135 cubic feet of space. Family-friendly touches include such items as bulkhead-mounted sunshade video screens and backpack hooks.
In a promising adaptation of Ford's new Work Solutions technology, adapted to family rather than small business use, the in-dash computer uses radio frequency identification to keep track of kids' items. Parents have only to attach special tags onto items such as sports equipment, musical instruments, backpacks and homework folders. Then the Work Solutions setup uses predictive algorithms to figure out what items should be on board, based on the family's activity schedule, and checks for them.
The in-dash technology also has sensors to notify parents if young passengers' safety seats are not properly attached or if seatbelt tension is insufficient.
The more fanciful items probably won't make it onto a production van: side inner door panels in the second row are water-pen-friendly whiteboards that wipe clean for budding graffiti artists, and there are built-in hand sanitizer and sunscreen dispensers, walkie-talkie radios with a charging dock and an integrated awning that opens when the rear cargo doors are open. Seat covers are removable, washable and can be changed — to give the interior a new look, or when the number of smushed Oreos takes the upholstery to the point of no return.
The Family One gets the van's workaday 2.0-liter inline-4 engine and is capable of being fitted with alternatively fueled engines in the future, Ford says.
Inside Line says: So many great items for families. Too bad they're added to what is basically a commercial vehicle. — Laura Sky Brown, Correspondent
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ford_flexer says:
03:28 PM, 08/19/2010
i would deffinently buy this. the new odessey mmmmmm....not so much