Aaron Brzozowski
The Fiesta-based Ford EcoSport subcompact CUV has been spied testing yet again on American soil, breathing new life into the speculation that the mini crossover will be brought in to slot below the Escape in Ford’s North American utility vehicle lineup.
You can find the latest gallery of Ford EcoSport spy shots over at Autoblog.
The crossover/SUV space continues to exhibit strong signs of growth, with many analysts expecting it to represent as much as 40 percent of all individual vehicle sales in the US by 2020. Ford is currently left without a subcompact to square off against the likes of Jeep’s Renegade, Buick’s Encore, and others; tweaking the global Ford EcoSport model to suit American tastes would be the quickest way to plug that gap.
The Ford EcoSport most recently spied testing on US soil wears less camouflage than its earlier counterparts, allowing us to observe an updated front-end which, like the Edge and the refreshed Escape, wears its large, hexagonal main grille up high between the headlamps. Observing that, it’s important to note that besides (perhaps) coming to the US, the Ford EcoSport is also due for a mid-generational update in myriad other markets.
Of course, it’s possible that Ford will elect to wait until after the next-generation Fiesta comes along before launching a Ford EcoSport in North America. But so long as that gap in the automaker’s SUV lineup remains unfilled, Ford continues to forfeit sales to rivals; we can’t see them letting that continue much longer.
