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Friday April 17, 2009
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The most fascinating car and perhaps the homeliest vehicle at the New York International Auto Show is the Ford Transit Connect Family One concept. It's a European van - tall, narrow, not very long - outfitted with gadgets to delight an American family. The smallest display in the Family One is the 10-inch LCD in the dash. Two LCD projectors provide back row entertainment, and every scooter, stroller, and helmet in the back is RFID-tagged so you won't leave the park without them. Kids can write on the side door paneling and the ink dries up and disappears after a minute or two. The vehicle tells you when your child seat is level and properly installed. Cellular or WiMax wireless provides connectivity throughout the vehicle.
For now, it's very much a concept, says Joe Rork of Ford's computer research department. What's certain is the commercial version with a four-cylinder engine and manual transmission arrives this summer. The concept was created to judge consumer reaction and no decision has been made on production. With some of the costlier frills eliminated, this might be unusual enough to be popular among the crowd that 15 years ago thronged to minivans. It might even make consumers forget Ford's woeful Windstar minivan. Details on the Ford Transit Connect Family One after the jump.

Among the features in this concept:
- The front and rear seats are separated by a clear acrylic divider - parents' zone, kids' zone - with a big passthrough, so it's not for sound insulation. also means the passenger seat won't recline very much - sort of like being the row behind the exit row on a plane.
- A frosted panel that comes down from the roof dome is a screen for two rear-projectors, so Tommy and Molly have their own programs in back. (This is the kind of just-showing-off
- A custom child seat has an electronic level that reports when it's properly positioned and secured.
- Two scooters with RFID tags are in storage pods on the folding rear doors.
- Open the spare tire compartment and - voila - there's a folding stroller also with an RFID tag, in case a harried parent forgets the stroller as he or she pulls away. Hopefully not with the baby still in it - no swallowable RFID tag for baby, yet.
- Storage compartments in back hold helmets, walkie-talkies (what, no cellphone for each family member, only an FRS or GPRS walkie-talkie?), even a compartment with a clear front panel for a small Lego set.
- A hand sanitizer cutout in the left rear trim panel - press a button, out comes the liquid goop, a moment later the kids' hands are clean.
- Up front in the dash, there's the monster LCD display (photo). In addition to the usual audio, navigation, and phone information, it's also command central for alerting you to missing RFID-tag items - purse, scooter, stroller, child seat, helmet - or to the proper positioning of a child seat, or possibly low hand-sanitizer levels.
- Mounted on the passenger seatback is a rear-facing Logitech web camera that lets mom make sure the tykes in back are safe without turning her head.
- Wide area wireless, either cellular or WiMax, to provide streaming data to the car and also to any laptops via an in-car WiFi link. That also allows you to maintain an always-updated activities calendar that displays on the dashboard LCD panel.
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