Ford and Sony are showing the fruits of their long-term agreement in the 2009 Ford Flex. The sport utility vehicle is on display this week at the New York International Auto Show.
Slated for summer availability, the Flex has Sirius Satellite Radio with Travel Link as well as Microsoft Sync, in addition to the Sony audio system.
In January 2007, we reported that Ford and Microsoft announced Ford Sync, a voice-activated in-car communications and entertainment system for mobile phones and digital music players on vehicles equipped with Sony-branded audio systems.
Since 2002, the Lincoln brand has offered THX-certified audio systems with surround sound in its vehicles. More recently, Sirius became available in most Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles. DVD-based satellite navigation systems became available in most vehicles beginning in 2005.
Sony BMG recently launched Platinum MusicPass, a digital album card that delivers an album’s worth of music plus bonus material in high-quality files that Sony says are compatible with MP3 players. The Sync system in the Ford Flex will play these files as well as show the artwork and album information on an 8-inch LCD screen.
Ford and Sony say their partnership builds on previous success at collaboration in Europe. This is the third collaboration between the companies in North America.
