Works on the Ford’s Interceptor has begun inside the Aria workshop. And already the crew of the Aria is meeting some problems like body lacking doors, wheels, front fenders, headlights, bumpers, seats or hood. But that is not the worst part yet because four of the guys from Aria are already having a hard time to fit the 400 horsepower V-8 engine into place. Will these guys panic? No not in this business. Panic has no place in the business of building million dollar concept cars and the Interceptor is definitely not an exemption.

The Aria team has never missed a deadline and the Interceptor project with all its problems is not going to be their first failure. And finally after all the problems encountered during the creation of the Interceptor it has left Aria headquarters in perfect condition and just in time last Friday night. The lustrous blue highway cruiser was trucked to Detroit where it will make its debut at the North American International Auto Show. The show will be officially open for the public on January 13, 2007.

Aria on the Interceptor

According to Aria President Clive Hawkins, “Aria has never missed a deadline even if it’s an around-the-clock fight to the finish. But of course the whole process is not without a drama. You’ve got to watch out since tempers usually get a little short which is understandable because building a concept car is a laborious, expensive, and a painstaking process plus the whole time element makes it even more into a temper-rising endeavor.”

The likes of the Interceptor usually cost $1million to $5million dollars or more basically because all the Ford parts used are top-of-the-line. Aside from that, coming up with the solid representation of the concept car is like transferring ideas from the design board to computer and then to reality---and that takes a huge amount of money. And what does the automaker get in return? Just loads of publicity at auto shows which they hope can help them in encouraging buyers to purchase their cars. And the sad part is after investing huge amount of money on the concept car there’s no guarantee that it will go into production.

Building a concept car can usually take 18,000 man-hours. At the Aria workshop most of the parts used for the concept car whether it’s for the body and instrument panel, knob and window - are manually made or created using several hi-tech machines found at the workshop. Plus, the builders often work from nothing other than a full-size clay model of the concept car.

Ford’s advanced design director Freeman Thomas has made regular weekly visits to Aria to check on the progress of the Interceptor as well as to ensure that all the finer details are not left out. Plus he also needs to make sure that all parts fit perfectly so that nothing will go wrong during the auto show.