Ford is celebrating the grand opening of its new world headquarters. The new facility encompasses 2.1 million square feet of space and will house 4,000 employees when it’s fully completed in 2027. To celebrate, the automaker has given us a peek inside the building by releasing a bevy of images that show various spaces, such as the public and employee lobbies, the main showroom with 10 turntables, the Savannah Courtyard with outdoor turntables for inspecting vehicles in natural light, and six new design studios.
Let’s focus on those design studios, because a few of the images show glimpses of full-size clay models that Ford is working on. It’s our belief that automakers are always intentional when there’s a clay model or a sketch of a car in the background of an image they release. If that’s the case, then Ford wants us to see these particular vehicles, and it’s our job to figure out what they might be.
What’s The Clay Trying To Tell Us?
The first image we’ll examine shows an artist working on a slab of reddish-brown clay in the foreground. There are two full-size clay vehicle models in the background – one showing its front half and the other showing its rear half. The one showing its front half, located on the left of the image, appears to Bronco-like in its design, with a vertical grille that’s almost canted forward, a relatively upright and flat windshield, and those perfectly round wheel arches.
That said, we don’t think it’s a version of the current Bronco or even a styling exercise for the next-generation Bronco. Our first guess is that it’s the next-generation Ford Bronco Sport whose design may hew even closer to that of its big brother. It’s less likely this is a model of the $30,000 electric mid-size truck that Ford is developing because of its unaerodynamic styling and the fact its roof appears to go back farther than we can see in the image.
The other full-size clay model in the image is on the right and appears to be an SUV. At first glance, we’d swear we were looking at the back end of a Land Rover Range Rover. It appears to be a large SUV, as the overhang behind the rear wheel is substantial. While we feel less confident guessing this one’s identity, it could be a Lincoln SUV of some sort, perhaps the next-generation of the three-row Aviator.
The second image we’d like to examine is similar to the first, with an artist working on a project in the foreground and two full-scale clay models in the background. This time, the vehicle on the left is showing a lot of itself, including the fact it’s a four-door truck. It’s possible this could be the aforementioned $30,000 electric truck Ford’s developing, as it appears smaller than a full-size F-150. Its wheel openings are quite large, though, and the truck’s cab ends abruptly ahead of the rear wheels. It could also be a styling exercise for the next-generation Ranger.
The other vehicle in this image is obscured by some industrial furniture and a white column of some sort. It also looks less finished, so it’s hard to glean any reliable clues about its identity. It appears to be an SUV, and unlike the SUV in the first image, it has a chunky rear end with a near vertical backside. Your guess is as good as ours regarding this one.
The last image we’ll examine shows a clay model of the Mustang in the foreground with two vehicles under wraps behind it. The first vehicle behind the Mustang is definitely a truck and could be the elusive $30,000 electric pickup we’ve referenced so many times. It has a small stature and what appears to be an aero-friendly design, so our money says this must be it.
TopSpeed’s Take
As we said, automakers are intentional whenever they release images that show future designs in them. That’s why they’re so cleverly obscured, too small to see, or too blurry to make out. In this case, Ford gave us multiple vehicles to examine, though we can’t say with certainty what any of them are. That said, we’re most confident the truck hidden under the black sheet is Ford’s $30,000 electric pickup.
As for Ford’s new headquarters, it looks like a lovely place to work with lots of collaborative spaces, large open areas, and cool details to discover. One detail in particular we think is cool is that every floor of the new headquarters has 22-inch-thick concrete floors to carry the weight of moving vehicles around inside the building. Ford’s entire future lineup will be wheeled into its meeting rooms in short order, and we think we got a good glimpse of some of it today.
Source: Ford
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