First Look: Ford Refl3x Concept
The perhaps too precious "3" in REFL3X refers to the three-place cockpit and the three power sources on board: A hybrid biodiesel-electric drivetrain spins the front wheels (and Ford's eco/green PR machinery, too, with any luck), while solar panels along the center of the roof and in the eyebrows above the LED headlamps trickle-charge the on-board electrical systems or power fans to cool the interior on hot days.
Continuing down the list toward less feasible features, rear-hinged "butterfly" scissor/ gullwing-type doors allegedly improve access to the rear seat (loading kids into that rear-facing infant seat will earn extra chiropractor visits no matter how the doors open). The cantilevered center console juts back from the dash without touching the floor--drop a pen, and there's no crevasse to swallow it. Of course, if this essentially T-roofed body flexes the least bit in any direction, that console will be wagging at the kids like a schoolmarm's finger.
How much have you spent to shrink your cell-phone, iPod, and laptop computers?
But the REFL3X's significance is in its basic shape, which Freeman Thomas, Ford North America's director of strategic design, describes as a marriage of digital and analogue design. It was conceived and built in the computer, but it was massaged by human hands as a full-scale clay model. Thomas is bullish on the basic concept of a new small-car line. "Get the basic building blocks and philosophy right, like Alec Issigonis did [with the original Mini], and you really have something."
Are we looking at the next Mini? No. But the REFL3X's major selling points--affordability (sans gullwings and three-way powertrain), driving fun, and practicality--call to mind another popular Ford from 40 years back. Perhaps this could turn out to be the Mustang of the new, traffic-choked, $3-a-gallon millennium.