The 2012 Ford C-Max, shown at the 2009 Frankfurt auto show, comes to North America in late 2011.

The 2012 Ford C-Max, shown at the 2009 Frankfurt auto show, comes to North America in late 2011.

This week in the midst of the Frankfurt Motor Show and all the press coming out of it on things like the MINI Roadster, Peugeot BB1 and Volkswagen’s citycar announcement a little piece of news peaked out of the Ford headquarters in Detroit. Monday, Barb Samardzich, Ford vice president of powertrain engineering, said that two- and three-cylinder engines were possible in Ford’s future plans for the new EcoBoost™ technology.

 

Samardzich wouldn’t discuss timetables for the 2- and 3-cylinder engines, but she did admit that these might possibly be produced in displacements under 1.0-liter.  A lot of engineers might question this as in the past small engines of this variety have produced excessive vibration, but Ford believes that they have a solution for that by using technologies such as balanced shafts that will make most of the issues inherent to these types of engine “manageable.”

 

This announcement is really in conjunction with announcement that for 2010 Ford will bring a 1.6-litter EcoBoost™ motor to market. This engine is slated to go into the next generation Ford C-Max, a line of Focus-derived small minivans. The C-Max also reintroduces Ford back into the minivan market segment, an area they haven’t been invested in since the last Ford Freestar for 2007.

 

Bottom line—the big changes are coming from Ford, a company that says it will sell 1.3 million EcoBoost-equipped vehicles per year by 2013. 750,000 units are expected to be in the North American market alone.

 

More from Frankfurt will be on the way over the next week, so keep an eye on AllSmallCars.com for everything all small cars. Until then be sure to check out our blogs, reviews and the photo gallery.

 

[Source: Automotive News]