Also in the offing is a direct marketing effort to tap the corporate sector, said company officials.

Going by an internal market research, the company expects that over 30 per cent of Escort owners will graduate to Ikon within a year with the help of the exchange and finance schemes.

Ford India vice-president Jim Johnston said the company will make special efforts to tap the client base of Ford Escort owners.

The company will target corporates aggresively, which is expected to account for over 25 per cent of demand for Ikon, Johnston said. Road and home shows with multimedia presentations, targeted at exclusive market segments, will form part of direct marketing effort. "The idea of direct marketing programme will be to broaden Ikon's appeal to corporate clients," said Johnston.

Unlike as in case of Ford Escort,the company expects to register more demand for the petrol version of Ikon vis-a-vis its diesel variant. Johnston figures that 60 per cent of the sales will be in the petrol version. In case of Ford Escort, 70 per cent of the demand has been for the diesel variant, officials said.

Ford officials claim that the Ikon will be fully Euro-II compliant at the time of its launch later this year.

The company is open to the idea of launching a sports model of Ikon, Johnston said. He, however, was non-committal on the timeframe involved in introducing the sports model.

Service-training programmes for dealers and service providers are expected to start in a few weeks, officials said.

Ford will look into exports of Ikon to European and Asian markets, 12 months after its launch in India. The company would like to establish the brand in India first before looking at exports, the officials said. Europe, will be a major export destination for Ikon, they said.

The company is already in the process of making Fordvehicles available in more centres across the country. With addition of new cities such as Lucknow, Chandigarh and Calcutta, Ford models will be available in over 22 centres across the country. The number of showrooms are also expected to cross the 40 mark by middle of next year, officials said.

The Ford Ikon is being built at the company's integrated manufacturing facility at Marailamalai Nagar near Chennai.

Alternatve fuel vehicles plan awaits nod

Ford India is awaiting a clear-cut directive from the Government to introduce alternative fuel vehicles in the country. "If the Government comes out with such a policy we would be happy to participate by launching liquidified petroleum gas and compressed natural gas-driven vehicles in the country," said vice-president Jim Johnston.

Ford offers a wide variety of alternate fuel vehicles in the US and Europe. These includes vehicles run on CNG, LPG, propane, ethanol and electric. Ford will be investing in excess of $1 billion in its global alternativefuel-vehicle programme and emission research over the next five years.

In India, the company has instituted a Henry Ford Chair at the IIT in Chennai for research in vehicle emission and environment. The company is working closely with the Pune-based Automative Research Association of India and has provided advanced testing equipment and training to the institute, officials said.