Ford 021C

The Ford 021C is a concept car that Ford first showed to the public at the October 1999 Tokyo Motor Show. It was designed by Marc Newson, whom Ford design director J Mays chose after seeing his Lockheed lounge chair in a Madonna video, and was built by Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin, Italy. The name comes from the Pantone orange colour said to be Newson's favourite, although the car was repainted lime green for the Milan Furniture Fair in April 2000, and Ford said 021C also stands for 21st Century. The result was a four-door saloon in a retro-futurist theme, aimed at buyers aged 21 and under, whose exterior and interior shapes echoed Newson's round-cornered dish racks, furniture and lamps. It was powered by a 1.6-litre Zetec engine producing 100 PS, driving the front wheels through a four-speed automatic, and its carbon fibre composite body was 3,601 millimetres long, 19 millimetres shorter than the first-generation Ford Ka. Produced purely as a styling exercise, it has been called one of the great what-ifs of recent car design history.