The Ford MA Concept
concept car
A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...
was a 2002 minimalist design exercise drawn by Jose Paris and championed by Ford's VP of design J. Mays. It was exhibited as an art object in museums as well as a traditional concept car in
auto show
An auto show, also known as a motor show or car show, is a public exhibition of current automobile models, debuts, concept cars, or out-of-production classics. It is attended by automotive industry representatives, dealers, auto journalists a ...
s. It received an
IDSA Silver
Industrial Design Excellence Award
The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is an award program previously co-sponsored by ''BusinessWeek'' magazine, and in 2010 ''Fast Company'' magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). According to the IDSA, IDEA "i ...
in 2003.
The MA displayed many unusual automotive practices. It had the shape of a low slung two seat roadster with no top, but it was powered by an electric motor. The design was flexible enough, though, to accommodate a small internal combustion engine.
Very few of the parts were painted and there were none of the usual
hydraulic fluid
A hydraulic fluid or hydraulic liquid is the medium by which power is transferred in hydraulic machinery. Common hydraulic fluids are based on mineral oil or water. Examples of equipment that might use hydraulic fluids are excavators and backhoe ...
s or industrial adhesives common in most cars, making it 96%
recyclable.
It was designed to be assembled and disassembled easily with a minimal amount of equipment. There were no welds holding it together: Instead, its 500 or so pieces of
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...
,
aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...
and carbon fibre were held together with 364
titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...
bolts. The total weight was said to be .
Some automotive columnists have presented the Ford MA as the forerunner to a small series
kit car, much like the
Lotus Seven. Others have called it an
IKEA
IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...
-mobile.
External links
Coverage at ConceptCar.co.ukArticle in Motor Trend
{{Ford Concept
MA