On March 28, Jiangling Ford Lingrui was officially listed. The new car is available in four configurations: elite, platinum collar, prestige and prestigious plus, priced at 139,800-16.58 million yuan. As Jiangling Ford's new compact SUV, let's take a look at how competitive this car is.
No loss of the look and size of competitors
The appearance of Lingrui is similar to that of its own Lingyu, and the "momentum" hollowed-out inverted hexagonal through-type grille surface uses chrome silver, the overall texture is medium, and the shape will be reminiscent of the sharp boundary of the Changan Ford next door. The integrated daily running light and the bumper designed by the central honeycomb are docked with black plastic parts, and with the LED headlight belt, the sense of movement is not low. Coming to the side, the waist line is similar to the Changan Ford sharp boundary, the convex horizontal tension line at the front and rear fenders is seamlessly connected with the window line, coupled with the popular lower concave of the body in the past two years, the side of the lingrui is relatively rough.
Ford Lingrui's front and side (Image: Jiangling Ford)
In honor of the first generation of wild horses, the taillight cavity adopts a three-column design. The designer arranged a dish-like plate under the English logo of EQUATOR SPORT, which seems to be convenient for consumers to better open the rear compartment cover. Thanks to the folding waistline design, the car has a drag coefficient of only 0.318.
The length, width and height of the Lingrui are 4630 mm, 1935 mm and 1706 mm respectively, and the wheelbase is 2726 mm. But the width and height are 15 mm and 106 mm more than the Changan Ford EVOS, which is positioned in compact coupe SUVs, and the wheelbase is almost 219 mm more than the latter. Even compared with the front row of compact SUVs such as Volkswagen Tanyue and Dongfeng Honda CR-V, Lingrui is not inferior in size.
Ford Lingrui rear (Image source: Ford China)
Impressive interior and power configuration
The center console and door handles are wrapped in black leather soft material, and the lower part of the three steering wheels to the glove box and the lower half of the door panel are white plastic pieces. The two 12.3-inch dual screens, which are the same as Mondeo and Changan Lincoln Z, can provide relatively intuitive driving information for car owners. The self-developed car machine developed by Ford and Baidu has also been changed to the Tencent TAI 4.0 car machine system with a higher degree of localization this time. Vibrating touch feedback is also a small highlight. There is a wireless charging port under the air conditioner air outlet. Like many of Ford's models, Lingrui uses the E-shifter electronic shift knob, which leaves a space for sundries underneath, and it is not a problem to put a regular backpack in. The seats are available in blue and white colours.
Lingrui's interior and some of the configuration (Image source: Ford China)
In terms of power, the car is equipped with a Ford Ecobost170 1.5T in-line four-cylinder turbocharged engine with a maximum output of 170 horsepower and a maximum torque of 260 Nm, matching a 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission provided by Magna.
Ford Lingrui's Ecoboost 170 1.5T engine (Image: Jiangling Ford)
How competitive is it compared to competitors?
Lingrui's competitors at the same price are Dongfeng Honda CR-V and FAW-Volkswagen Tanyue. In terms of size, Lingrui is much larger than the other two cars in terms of length, width and height, and tanyue's wheelbase is only 5 mm more than lingrui.
Dongfeng Honda CR-V (Image source: Dongfeng Honda)
In terms of power, the CR-V pure fuel version also uses a full range of 1.5T four-cylinder engines, with a maximum output of 193 horsepower. Tanyue, on the other hand, uses a 1.4T four-cylinder engine with a relatively low output, which also has higher oil requirements. Tanyue and Lingrui use a 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, while the CR-V uses a CVT stepless transmission. In terms of tire size, Lingrui and Tanyue are equipped with 235/55R18 tires as standard, while the CR-V uses slightly smaller 235/65R17 tires.
FAW-Volkswagen Tanyue Tayron (Source: FAW-Volkswagen)
Having said the powertrain, let's take a look at the active and passive safety configuration of these three cars. The introductory configurations of Lingrui, Tanyue and CR-V all use braking force distribution and brake assist systems. In terms of passive safety, the CR-V is much inferior, with only the front double airbags and the main side airbags, which are in stark contrast to the standard 6 airbags of the remaining two models.
In terms of driving configuration, Tanyue uses an 8-inch LCD touch screen, while the CR-V's 5-inch non-touch central control screen is a bit out of place. Tanyue and Lingrui's car machines support Apple CarLife and Huawei HiCar interconnection, while CR-V does not. On the whole, as a joint venture brand compact SUV, Ford Lingrui has a budget of about 200,000 yuan, and consumers who want to buy medium-sized SUVs can be said to be attractive.
Jiangling Ford Lingrui (Image source: Jiangling Ford)
summary
As Ford's earliest joint venture company in China, Jiangling Ford spread all over the country with full smooth fire, earlier than Changan Ford. However, in the past two years, the performance of the car company in passenger cars has not been ideal, and the Ford territory built by the Jiangling Victory 330 has been questioned by the outside world about its lack of sincerity. At present, the compact SUV market that many car companies have been involved in has become a red sea, and whether Jiangling Ford Lingrui can rely on mature power configuration and sincere rich configuration to gain a firm foothold in this market, for the time being, we have to draw a question mark.