By Indira Kannan and Allister D'souza, CNBC-TV18

What can we expect from Ford's  USD 500 million investment into its Chennai plant to produce engines and a small car for the Indian market?

Ford is not saying much about its new small car for India, set to roll out in late 2009 or early 2010, but at the auto show currently on in Detroit, it hinted at what to expect.

It will be a B-category car, roughly in this size range and with a price tag of between Rs 3-4 lakh.

The car will have a very high local content, including locally manufactured engines from Ford's expanded facilities in Chennai. But the American automaker promises not to skimp on the car's features.

"It's going to be a product that has global capability within the Ford company but it's also going to be tailored to ensure it suits the Indian customers' specific market demands." feels John Parker, Executive VP - Asia Pacific & Africa, Ford.

"It's going to be competitive from an attributes perspective and it's going to be competitive from a design perspective. From an attributes perspective, we're talking about ride and handling, the interior package, feature content, appearance, options and features." says John Sullivan, Director - Product Development at Ford.

The design on the new small car is being led from India, and ford says the team already knows what the vehicle is going to look like.

"We have finished the appearance, we've concurred with the appearance and we're rapidly progressing to signing off all the engineering and migrating into developing the prototypes and concept vehicles." adds Sullivan.

No word yet on what the new car will be called, but ford has not ruled out a locally derived name. by any name, it will be an important addition to the carmaker's stable in a market proving to be increasingly relevant to Detroit.