Blog: RALPH MORTON
Ford’s 1.0 EcoBoost engine wins International Engine of the Year award.
Dr Thomas Zenner beams with the inner satisfaction of someone who knows he’s done a good job. More than a good job.
Thomas smiles with the knowledge that he’s absolutely nailed it.
For Thomas, an unassuming, genial engineer with a generous smile but little in the way of hair, is the supervisor of three cylinder engine development at Ford. And the new engine which he has developed – the three-cylinder 1.0T EcoBoost – is simply cracking.
It’s a fact that has just been recognised with the International Engine of the Year Award.
Five years in development, and at a cost of some €200m, the engine is now sitting in the Ford Focus range. There’s a choice of two power trims: 100PS, five-speed manual with 109 g/km CO2 and 58.9mpg fuel economy; and 125PS with six speed manual, 114g/km CO2 and 56.5mpg.
“This is the most significant engine for Ford in the last 10 years,” explains Thomas to me. “One litre is also the most efficient size, so it won’t get smaller or bigger in terms of capacity, but we can tune it, by taking off the turbocharger for instance.”
Given the investment, it would need to be more than a one-hit wonder.
Thomas doesn’t say it, but that means the engine would sit well in both the Fiesta and Ka in a less tuned state, although it will find its first berth outside the Focus in the all-new B-Max and C-Max MPV.
“I see an application for this engine with petrol-electric hybrids as well as for range-extenders,” confirms Thomas. Given its light weight, 40kg less than the current 109g/km 1.6 TDCI diesel, and compact packaging (its footprint is no more than an A4 sheet of paper) you begin to understand how this new EcoBoost engine will underpin future Ford product strategy.
