Iconic Explorer embarks in new direction

Scott Burgess / The Detroit News

Ford Motor Co. unveiled the future face of its iconic SUV on Sunday — the Ford Explorer America concept — and it’s a radical departure from the past that reflects the rapidly changing dynamics of the U.S. car market.

While the futuristic-looking vehicle carries a concept name, much of the technology found in it will see real world applications, including its slimmed-down powertrain, lower profile, steering and the way it’s engineered and built.

Gone is the body-on-frame construction and big V-8 engine that defined many truck-based SUVs of the 1990s — and generated fat profits for Ford and other automakers — replaced with the company’s Ecoboost technology that will go in half a million future vehicles.

The Explorer America concept is built off a unibody platform typically found on cars and crossovers to enhance the vehicle’s driving dynamics and to shed weight.

For Ford, it’s a strategic shift meant to reconstitute and revive one of the automaker’s most profitable and popular vehicle franchises. Ford has sold more than 6.5 million Explorers since its debut 18 years ago.

But the recent surge of gas prices and other practical needs are prompting consumers to abandon traditional, truck-based SUVs in favor of car-based crossovers that still offer up to seven-passenger seating and flexible cargo space, but with better fuel economy and a more refined ride.

Sporting Ford’s three-bar grille, the Explorer America concept keeps its aggressive styling throughout and promises to have the same off-road capabilities.

Inside the Explorer concept, designers used single-touch stackable sliding seats. There’s also a three-dimensional compass and navigation unit with a topographical map built in to the instrument panel.

The new engines featured on the Explorer concept will offer 20 percent to 30 percent better fuel efficiency over a current V-6 Explorer, Ford officials said.

The Explorer concept’s powertrains include a 2-liter, four-cylinder turbocharged engine, using Ford’s Ecoboost technology. It produces 275-horsepower and 280-pound-feet of torque. The V-6 model would use a 340-horsepower, 3.5-liter engine.

The change in powerplants helps the concept drop 150 pounds over today’s Explorer. Other technology it features includes electric power-assisted steering that cuts weight and reduces stress on the engine. Up to 90 percent of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models will use electric power steering by 2012.

For Explorer, the changes will be adopted when the next-generation model debuts in 2010.

The overhauled Explorer, once a top-selling, highly profitable SUV with annual U.S. sales in excess of 400,000 units, demonstrates how drastically the market has changed. In 2007, Ford sold 138,000 Explorers — down 23 percent from 2006 — while U.S. demand for Toyota Motor Corp.’s gas-electric hybrid Prius sedan jumped 70 percent to top 181,000 units.

"Customers are smart. They value vehicles — the more efficient, the better," said Jim Farley, Ford’s group vice president of marketing and communications, in a statement. "Ford gets it."