Kris Kolman

Short for NaviGator...

MTP will be getting the new Expy/'Gator, including the extended wheelbase proper Suburban fighter. I'm expecting Ford will introduce them at Chicago (Expy) and maybe New York ('Gator). Beyond that the roumors are that the Twin Cities Ranger production will shift to MTP.

Looks like the "port holes" were to simulate the fender vents on the MKS... So my guess is that this was a engineering mule for the V8 powered D3

My aunt has one and loves it... And my sister is on her second Escape (about to turn it in for a Freestyle but that's because the family has outgrown the Escape).

Before assuming the Escape is dieing on the vine look at the sales... Combined Escape/Mariner sales wer up over 4% over last year. Yep it's tanking :rolleyes: Remember the Escape's interior was refreshed early last year, and the Hybrids came out mid-year... You know what making an assumption makes you look like?

That seems to be the standard in the class (Pilot and Highlander), so it's likely...

Very interesting... I think its likely a test mule for the 3.5L and/or the Lincoln... I think the styling addons were the engineers playing on the weekends. But they normally wouldn't add vents to the underhood of a powertrain mule unless it was in the production plans (as underhood temps are somthing they look for in new packaging).

Admidadly going offroad isn't the F150's strength... It will generally get beat by other "proper" pickups. But I tell you a large percentage of F150's use their beds to hawl gear nd hitches to tow boats, campers, trailers of all sorts. The F150 was designed to meet the need of every contractor or rancher that utilizes his truck for work, and yet is filled with as much creature comforts so their wife doesn't mind using it to go to the mall. The Ridgeline was a anwser to a question that noone asked... I truck that has no use on a construction sight and yet doesn't even match the F150's interior quality. A truck that can't even carry two motrobikes with gear, or tow a boat to the lake wihtout exceeding the payload/towing ratings. It's a minivan wrapped in a truck body... And at least a minivan will be useful in carring 8 people.

The Freestyle is dead talk is from the notoriously illinformed media. I worked out the Freestyle sales rate at ~78,000 per year and the entire Chicago plat @ ~198,000 per year... That's almost 40% of the entire production run. There's no way Ford can kill the Freestly without killing Chicago at the same time. My guess is that Chicago will add a Mercury version of the Freestyle, add a Lincoln version of the Five-Hundred, and keep the three existing nameplates (Five-Hundred, Freestyle, and Montego) in order to keep it humming along. As for getting back on subject... The extended Trailblazer was actually as long as a Tahoe without any of the benifits. The Tahoe matches its fuel economy and has better egonomics. This is simply good sense comming back to the ute world after years of throwing things on the wall and seeing if they'd stick. That type of throwing money around doesn't happen in a shrinking market. The body on ute market isn't going away, but it's "hot factor" is gone...

And what to do wih the thousands of dealers? It's easy to kill things whan your posdting from your mom's basement. Nasser treid to kill Mercury and did nothing but bring down the entire dealership body... Without dealers you don't sell squat. Wihtout a happy dealership body you look as bad as the dealers are pissed off.