Automatic
Tax: n/a
Mileage: 8
Electric
Other
Mileage: 4
Mileage: 9
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Mileage: 14
Mileage: Unknown
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Most car companies are changing simply because they've started making EVs. For Ford, the difference goes a bit deeper than that. Tired of years of losses (£1.6 billion in 2022), the brand's board must have considered following General Motors in pulling out of Europe completely. Instead, they've turned the model range on its head, dispensed with 380,000 staff, closed a key factory (Saarlouis in Germany) and signed off eventual death warrants for Ford's two most recognisable model nameplates, Focus and Fiesta. In place of the Fiesta, at the company's German Cologne plant will be made this car, the Explorer. You might vaguely know the Explorer name because it designates a big SUV hugely successful in the US, marketed briefly in the UK between 1997 and 2001 and lately sold in small numbers (as a Plug-in Hybrid) in Europe. This latest mid-sized Explorer is a slightly smaller SUV than that and of course it's all-electric, sharing its battery, MEB platform and basic architecture with the Volkswagen ID.4 as part of an agreement with Volkswagen which Ford reciprocates for by building VW-badged commercial vehicles in South Africa and Turkey. But you want to know about the Explorer, created as one of the company's four new 'product banner' sales categories, this one categorising SUVs and known as 'Adventurous Spirit'. The Blue Oval maker insists that, despite the shared underpinnings, this is a proper Ford in the way it drives, the way it looks and its cabin feel. Is it? Let's see.
What Ford really needed at this point, particularly with the demise of the Fiesta and Focus nameplates, was a small, affordable EV to fill that gap going forward. This Explorer isn't quite that, but it's the next best thing and will make more profit for Ford than those old combustion models ever did. Partly because of all the parts it borrows from Volkswagen. But these aren't things you can see or feel and when it comes to these, the Explorer it really is its own car - and a sea change for Ford in so many ways. Previous conventional models from the brand were often bought because of things you wouldn't immediately appreciate, like ride and handling. Few folk in living memory have chosen a Ford because it had a nicer cabin or better media technology than its rivals - but that might be the case here. And overall? Well the reliance on Volkswagen engineering for the end result marks the reversal of market fortune that has taken place here; 25 years ago, VW's Golf needed head-hunted Ford engineers to improve its suspension technology. But the Blue Oval brand is where it is and this reborn Explorer model line does indeed represent a huge opportunity for a fundamental repositioning of this American marque. And not before time.
Borrow £6,000 with £1,000 deposit over 48 months with a representative APR of 18.1%, monthly payment would be £172.36, with a total cost of credit of £2,273.28 and a total amount payable of £9,273.28.
