After years of struggling to find a foothold in the Indian car market Ford finally launched a winner in the Figo, a car that was specifically designed for India by the Australian division of Ford. The Figo is the first hatchback that Ford has produced in India (please discount the attempt of a hatchback version of the Escort) and is based on the previous generation Fiesta platform. Ford as a company is huge and it usually takes it very long to make strategic decisions and make quick changes to its product portfolio. After years and years of belief that Indians love three box cars and that the true market lies there, it finally dawned on Ford that it does not matter what Indians want; what matters was what Indians will buy. Most of the best selling cars in India are small hatchbacks preferably with a diesel engine and a modest price. The Figo was the result of this realization and it started producing per month volumes that were equal to the per year volumes of other Ford cars. The Figo is a decent sized, diesel engined and relatively inexpensive hatchback that captured the imagination of the Indian car bazaar. Ford found an opportunity to export this car and over the last couple of years the number of countries that the car was being exported to gradually rose to 32. Now Ford is taking its best sellers to another 18 countries. Needless to say these are developing countries which want a reliable but inexpensive car. And the Figo fits the formula to a tee.