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52 May 2018 | AutoData ANNIVERSARY » FORD D ouble celebration: celebrating 50 years of the Taubaté, SP unit, Ford started the national production of the 1.5 Ti-VCT flex three-cylinder engine, 137 hp with ethanol, and also the MX65 manual transmission in there. The engine, previously, was imported from India and used in EcoSport. From its national production it will also equip the future Ka Freestyle, which arrives in the second half. The model will also receive the new transmission Made in Taubaté, exclusively, as the EcoSport will continue with the manual transmission IB5, also made there. According to Rogelio Golfarb, vice pre- By Caio Bednarski and Marcos Rozen GREAT GIFT AT 50TH Ford takes advantage of the 50th Taubaté factory celebration to start there production of new engine and gearbox sident of Government Affairs, Communi- cation and Strategy, Ka will be the reason for other news this year: “Wewill have Ka’s version equipped with a six-speed auto- matic transmission”. Golfarb assured that to make the new engine and gearbox national the com- pany made “strong investment”, but did not disclose the value. LyleWatters, Ford’s president for South America, also over- looked the value: “We have made signifi- cant investments in equipment, systems and improvements in production proces- ses that are aligned with Industry 4.0. The production line of the 1.5 engine received thirty new robots and the transmissions line received nineteen, besides laser welding process”. The factory’s production capacitywent from 430 thousand engines/year to 500 thousand. That is: Ford will produce 70 thousand units of the 1.5 engine each year. In the case of transmission, the productive capacity is the same and theMX65will also have production of 70 thousand units/year. UNIQUENESS According to Ford the new national engine is not only the first 1.5 liter three- -cylinder in the world but it is also the na- turally aspirated propellant with the highest specific power on the market - 91.3 hp per liter. It has aluminum block, double valve Disclousure/Ford