You’re looking at a Ford Fusion that’s been modified using so many exotic lightweight materials that it tips the scales at just 2650 pounds, or about as much as Ford’s subcompact Fiesta hatch. (The last production Fusion we weighed rang in at at 3474 pounds.) A curb weight of less than 2700 pounds is unheard of in this vehicle class, and we haven’t seen a sub-3000-pound mid-size Ford sedan since the first-gen Taurus in 1986.
Ford says that its lightweighting efforts reduced mass in the suspension and unsprung parts by 30 percent, the interior and glass by 35 percent, and the powertrain by 24 percent. Overall, the Lightweight Concept is 25 percent lighter, which lead engineer Matt Zaluzec told us should help Ford achieve an almost numerically identical improvement in fuel efficiency.
All the usual weight-saving measures have been brought to bear on this concept. Aluminum is used for the brake rotors, front subframe, doors, sills, and parts of the transmission. The springs are made from composite. High-strength steel goes into the B-pillar, while the steel stabilizer bars and crankshaft are hollow. The crank lives inside Ford’s turbocharged 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder. That engine, already available on the 2014 Fiesta SFE, has been further modified with forged aluminum connecting rods and a carbon-fiber cam carrier. The woven black stuff is also deployed for the oil pan, seat frames, instrument panel, and the super-narrow 19-inch wheels. The back window is polycarbonate, while the front and side windows are made from a lighter, chemically treated glass. Finally, some magnesium is thrown into the mix as part of the front door castings and the transmission. “In all honesty, we’ve never pushed the limit before with this number of castings in a mixed-material architecture,” Zaluzec said.
The $20 million project, which received half of its funding from a Department of Energy grant and another $5 million from supplier Magna International, will produce five additional cars for durability and crash testing through the third quarter of 2015.
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While carbon-fiber wheels aren’t likely to appear on the Fusion’s options list anytime soon due to cost, several components showcased here could enter production much sooner, Zaluzec said. We were told that the aluminum transmission-pump cover, aluminum-and-steel clutch hub, and the hollow, composite coil springs have a lot of promise.
Del Matharoo, Magna’s VP of engineering, told us that the company would carry the lessons learned here to other vehicles for which it supplies components or assembles, such as the next Mercedes-Benz G-wagen, which is expected to lose 400 pounds.
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