The new Ford Escape looks drastically different than its predecessor and according to the vehicle’s designer, Andrew Bazinski, there’s a good reason for this.
When designing the new Escape, Ford decided to essentially split the SUV into two separate vehicles. The Escape is a softly styled SUV aimed at being quite car-like while the Blue Oval’s long-awaited Baby Bronco will use the same platform but target those buyers after something more rugged.
This decision allowed Bazinski to tame the styling of the new Escape. Speaking with Automobile Magazine, he revealed he did this by taking some inspiration from the world of motorcycles.
Also Read: Ford Exec Says Unique Off-Road Escape Coming, Sounds Like The Baby Bronco To Us
“When I bought these bikes [his ’92 BMW R100R and ’80 BMW R100], they’re all full of fairings, and they’re over-body, and what I’m working on now is, like, tearing one down to a naked bike, its bare essentials and really having a pure, clean, streamlined look, so that’s what influenced, kind of, the new Escape. It’s having that pure shape and the streamlined look. That’s the connection here,” he revealed.
“We wanted to take it in two different directions, so the Escape is the more sporty, carlike version, and then we have a separate, more rugged, off-road version in the form of the Baby Bronco,” said Bazinski.
More obvious(ly) for casual onlookers, in addition to taking design inspiration from motorcycles of yesterday, Ford’s design team borrowed styling cues for the Escape from the ever-popular Focus.
“If you look at the bodywork, and how everything kind of flows, it has a lot of sweep to it and all of the surfaces are kind of flush. From the A-pillar back, we wanted to create a little bit of the Coke bottle shape inspired from [Porsche] 911s, and it has that nice voluptuous shoulder that comes down,” he said.
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