Ford Aspire Titanium AT wants to protect your knees...here's how

After equipping the mid-level variants of the Figo hatchback and the Aspire sedan with anti-lock braking system (ABS) and electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD) in India, Ford has now started adding driver-side knee airbag to the Titanium AT variant of the compact sedan Aspire.

With the addition of the new airbag, the Titanium AT now offers seven airbags. The Titanium is first car under Rs 10 lakh to come equipped driver knee airbag. However, the Titanium MT and Titanium+ MT variants continue with no change.

Ford Aspire is offered in a total of eight variants -- five petrol and three diesel. Under the hood, Figo Aspire packs three engine options -- 1.2-litre Ti-VCT petrol, 1.5-litre TDCI and 1.5-litre Ti-VCT motor -- and the transmission is taken care of by either a five-speed manual transmission or a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

The base model of Figo Aspire is powered by 1.2-litre Ti-VCT engine, which can churn out 87bhp at 6300rpm and 112Nm at 4000rpm of peak torque and comes mated to a five-speed manual transmission, whereas the 1.5-litre TDCi, which has the capacity to produce 99bhp of power and 215Nm of torque, will come with a five-speed manual gearbox. The third engine in the line-up, the 1.5-litre Ti-VCT, is tuned to produce 110bhp at 6,300rpm and 136Nm at 4250rpm of torque with 6-Speed dual clutch automatic gearbox.

In India, Volkswagen recently equipped its Polo and the Vento with ABS as standard across all trims. Volkswagen is the second carmaker in India to offer airbags and ABS as standard across all variants after Toyota. Japanese carmaker Honda also updated its Jazz hatchback in India with airbags as standard across all trims.